Saturday, August 23, 2008

The John McCain "pick a running mate" game.

You're John McCain--less than magnetic on the stump, uncomfortable with the "John McCain" caricature your staff wants and, like Bob Dole in 1996, eager to win the Presidency after being run off the road by the Bush family.

There are four paths you can take in choosing a Vice President:

1. Choose someone little-known who won't upstage you.

2. Mike Huckabee--may win over older and/or rigidly conservative Religious Right folks.  But be prepared for blowback from choosing a creationist running mate.

3. Condi Rice--may rally diehards who believe Bush was a fair man made fun of by the Evil Media and will someday be vindicated.  But tabloid media may want to dig into Ms. Rice's private life--which may make Religious Right uncomfortable.

4. Mitt Romney--will win over the Old Money/Wall Street wing of the GOP, no doubt.  And he may even be palatable to Religious Right after downplaying his Mormon faith a la JFK doing the same with his Catholicism in 1960.   But can the Number One on the ticket live with being overshadowed by Number Two?

[Assuming choices like Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg (an admittedly left-field pick) are off your table.]

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