So, who will McCain choose for VP? Possibilities:
1. Mike Huckabee. Probably not a choice he needs to make. The conservatives will bandwagon with him to stop Clinton if she's the nominee. He can wait on that.
2. Joe Lieberman. My greatest fear. This looks like a 'national unity' ticket. That will be dangerous, since the Dems need to show that a vote for McCain is just a third term for W.
3. Tommy Thompson. Was a dud as Homeland Security Fuehr- Secretary.
4. Mitt Romney. No. They don't like each other.
5. Elizabeth Dole. Another killer move. She's likable. Red Cross doesn't hurt.
6. William Weld. A real "f*** you" to Mitt Romney.
7. Gov. Pataki. Make a play for New York?
8. Rudy Giuliani (see Pataki)
9. Mitch Pawlenty (Gov of Minnesota). Could put Dems on defensive there.
10. Gov. Crist (Florida). Could take Florida off the plate for Dems. Also, a fork in the eye to Bush.
11. John Warner (VA). Could come out of retirement to destroy Dem chances of taking Virginia.
12. Condoleeze Rice. Too many negatives. Unmarried black woman in her 50s? Not the whitebread family person the GOP loves.
13. Sonny Perdue (Gov, GA). See Huckabee, but not a threat to McCain.
14. Orrin Hatch. Who needs Mitt?
15. Pete Domenici. He needs a job; also cancels out Richardson.
16. Tom Ridge. Meh.
17. Fred Thompson. Another dud.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
A Veep for McCain
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 9:28 AM
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3 comments:
The Republicans probably want a younger VP (a la Dan Quayle for GHWB). They may prefer a social conservative who can also help in the battleground states - OH, FL, MO, NM. What about Mitch Daniels from Indiana?
I agree with Dead Parrot... Probably a more dynamic, younger VP is what the Republicans want. Many conservatives realize that, with Cheney and the old Bushies in the White House for the past 8 years, they had no Princes or Princesses in waiting--which is why they got saddled with McCain. They probably don't want to make that mistake again, so they will elevate someone who is a good Presidential prospect later on down the line.
1. For this reason, although Huckabee would win conservative votes, I don't think he's ever going to be seen as true Presidential material. At least, I hope not. So I suspect he will pass over Huckabee... But it's a close call. Short-term thinking favors him, long-term not so much.
2. I'm not worried about Lieberman. I doubt he wants to go down in history as the only man to lose the VP spot for both parties. Besides, the man couldn't even win his own primary. As a supporter of the Iraq war who nevertheless keeps Harry Reid in power, Lieberman is pretty unpopular with almost everyone... Don't you think?
You dispensed with 3 and 4.
5. Elizabeth Dole could be an excellent choice. A woman. But being even older than McCain (by a few months) the VP job would probably be a dead-end for her, as it was for Cheney. The party might want someone with a future to be elevated this time, as I mentioned before.
10. I speculated before that McCain offered the VEEP position to Governor Crist of Florida. He's also in his 50s, which makes him good future Presidential material. I predict Crist.
Of course they don't want someone who will upstage the Old Man. Huckabee or Brownback wouldn't be bad. Giuliani could be a good pick too except that it would really alienate the Christian Conservatives.
Lieberman would be a real gamble. If the war news was good, they would look like the "national unity" ticket as mentioned above. But if the war news were bad, they'd be the most vulnerable to it.
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