Tuesday, July 17, 2012

# 2 GOP VP Possibilities

GOP VP Possibilities

Four years ago, I thought that Tim Pawlenty, then Governor of Minnesota, would have made a perfect candidate to run as VP with John McCain at the top of the ticket.  Pawlenty was a "true" conservative, not yet at that time catering to the extreme far right, and could have served to help legitimize McCain's conservative credentials. After only slightly considering Pawlenty and turning down Mitt Romney, McCain chose Sarah Palin.  Despite a friend who lives in Anchorage and who had predicted a few years earlier that Palin was an up-and-coming Republican national star, I (and apparently lots of others) never considered her for the 2008 VP slot.

And with good reason, as we have seen. But now Mitt Romney, rejected in 2008 by McCain after showing McCain's staff twenty-three years of his tax returns, faces a similar problem: choosing a VP candidate who can either (a) solidify his conservative credentials with the extremists, or (b) move him a bit more toward the middle without antagonizing the GOP far-right base.  I really thought Condi Rice would be the best choice, for several reasons:
(1) she has strong foreign policy experience, even though I don't agree with much of what she did;
(2) she was Secretary of State for dubya, than whom we haven't had a more conservative president since Reagan, and maybe not even then;
(3) she is pretty well respected, in part for NOT giving Angela Merkel a back rub, and in part because she is very intelligent and can be reasoned with;
(4) a VP debate between her and Joe Biden might be disastrous for Biden.

But Rice has apparently closed that door.  If her statements that she is NOT interested in running for VP are truthful, then Romney (a friend of mine on fb writes his name as "Rmoney") still has a big problem. 

Eric Cantor (Virginia) and Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) have not estabished themselves as either centrist or popular, especially in the sense that they probably won't bring any additional votes to the ticket that Romney doesn't already have. Well, Cantor might help bring Virginia back to the Red column, but Ryan won't do the same for Wisconsin.  And Cantor is nasty: once he starts campaigning, he'll repel more voters than he will attract.

 Other potential GOP VP candidates follow. Jan Brewer is an idiot, as are Butch Otter (Idaho has four electoral votes and has already voted for Romney, I suspect), Bobby Jindal (certifiable if not as criminal then at least as REALLY politically and economically out of touch), and Scott Walker (Romney was already nine points behind Obama in Wisconsin when the recall of Walker was defeated, so there's apparently no coattail effect there).

There could be others, but frankly I'm back to two names. Tim Pawlenty, a legitimate conservative from what might become a battleground state were he to be on the Romney ticket.  I honestly don't think Minnesota will go anywhere but Blue, and I recognize that Pawlenty has one big, major, perhaps-overwhelming, problem: he's a nebbish. I mean, really, folks, this man comes into a room, and everyone thinks two people have left; his speeches have been recorded for use by sleep-deprivation clinics.  I'd list a third (the rhetoric of those last comments really needs a third addition to "how nebbishy IS Tim Pawlenty?") but I don't have a third.

There is an alternative, a quiet, rational, honest, good-guy-albeit-very-conservative possibility: former Utah governor and former US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, Jr.

Utah is almost as likely as Idaho to vote Republican, so nothing is to be gained in electoral votes.  But Huntsman could solidify the Republican base, and he is certainly more intelligent and a better speaker than Romney.  For the country, I would have preferred Huntsman to be the presidential candidate opposing Obama; at least then whichever major party candidate got elected, we'd have a reasonable and intelligent president.  For the country, however, Obama is so much better than Romney that Huntsman may realize he has a better chance in 2016, IF he's interested at all in running for either position.

Chew on these thoughts fully before swallowing. And have a wonderful week or so.  I'll be back as the spirit moves me.  Or as the news does.  /RPW

1 comment:

  1. I laughed out loud at like 4 of these sentences. Keep em coming RPW!

    ReplyDelete