The Veepstakes
BARNES, FRED
The Veepstakes There’s an obvious winner. BY FRED BARNES When John McCain begins his search for a vice presidential running mate, he’ll quickly come upon a sad fact. He wants a candidate who...
...He lost the nomination to McCain, but religion wasn’t the reason...
...McCain thinks three vice presidential picks from the recent past were wise: Republican Dick Cheney in 2000 and Democrats Joe Lieberman in 2000 and Al Gore in 1992...
...Karl Rove, the president’s political strategist, has hinted that he considers Romney to be McCain’s best running mate...
...One can envision her comment in a McCain TV ad zinging Obama...
...So would Giuliani and Ridge...
...President Bush favors him as McCain’s veep...
...He has run a vigorous national campaign and been vetted by the press and his opponents for the Republican nomination...
...They were accepted almost instantly as ready to replace the president if necessary...
...Is there a downside to Romney...
...But his selection matters enormously, all the more because of his age...
...But I don’t believe the option of choosing a running mate for purely political reasons is open to McCain— not during wartime, anyway...
...These are very strong pluses...
...Some of them have impressive credentials...
...This hasn’t entirely gone out of fashion...
...No doubt Democrats would use it again, and it might have resonance if a recession hits and unemployment is increasing...
...Romney thus appears to have the best ratio of virtues to drawbacks...
...That’s criterion number two...
...I think that is a signifi cant difference...
...Lieberman would probably subtract more votes from the McCain ticket than he’d add...
...But he’s no Zell Miller...
...According to Rove, he would “double” McCain’s trouble with conservatives...
...McCain needs someone more vibrant and upbeat...
...He has the right idea in mind...
...Mike Huckabee’s name is bound to come up in the veepstakes, since he’s now run nationally and been vetted...
...It’s not their fault, but it’s nonetheless true...
...But his campaign was dreary and disappointing...
...With the downturn worsening, the economy may surpass national security as the top issue of the campaign...
...He wants a candidate who will be seen as a plausible president...
...Obama’s response could be devastating: “If experience is so important, why did you pick a running mate who has so little, indeed less than I do...
...Presidential nominees once tried to balance their ticket with someone who’d helped win a state they might otherwise lose...
...McCain has also been advised, at least by the media, to pick a much younger person for vice president...
...And after years of success as a big time player in the global economy, Romney understands how markets work...
...He would surely enhance McCain’s appeal to independents and moderate Democrats...
...The list of plausible presidents is short...
...A pick who produces unhelpful surprises, as Geraldine Ferraro did in 1984 (her husband’s business deals) and Dan Quayle did in 1988 (his National Guard duty), is exactly what McCain doesn’t need...
...He’s acceptable to conservatives and especially to social conservatives, who disproportionately volunteer as ground troops in Republican presidential campaigns...
...The unfortunate truth is that few Republicans meet these simple criteria...
...When he ran for the Senate from Massachusetts in 1994, the incumbent, Teddy Kennedy, raised the layoff issue with punishing effect...
...Choosing a running mate is the fi rst major decision that a presidential nominee makes...
...Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Tom Ridge, and Joe Lieberman qualify...
...So McCain had better choose well...
...Possibly...
...But there’s just one problem: McCain doesn’t like him...
...So how about Lieberman in 2008...
...In fact, Clinton has set up Obama to be attacked by McCain on this front...
...Former House member John Kasich and ex-trade representative and budget director Rob Portman, both from Ohio, are too...
...As a corporate turnaround artist, he rescued companies, sometimes by laying off workers...
...Blunt, for example, is an Annapolis graduate and a Naval Reservist called to active duty after 9/11...
...True, Giuliani was a hero of 9/11 as mayor of New York, and Ridge, a former Pennsylvania governor, was President Bush’s fi rst homeland security chief...
...That’s about it...
...Romney has allies in the Bush wing of the Republican party...
...Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota is often mentioned in this regard...
...Giuliani or Ridge might prompt a third party pro-life presidential challenger...
...Lieberman is a liberal on domestic issues, including abortion...
...They were nationally known political heavyweights who passed the most important test...
...Fred Thompson, the ex-senator from Tennessee and now a TV actor, The Vee Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Romney has three other add-ons...
...I will bring a lifetime of experience [to the White House] and Senator Obama will bring a speech he gave in 2002...
...is also a close friend of McCain...
...He could shore up McCain’s admitted weakness on economic issues...
...He’s unfl appable in debates...
...His strong suit against Barack Obama, his likeliest Democratic opponent, or even against Hillary Clinton, is experience...
...Her TV ad raising doubts about Obama’s readiness to be president was critical to her victories last week in the Ohio and Texas primaries...
...It’s not his Mormonism...
...That leads to Romney...
...Both foreign policy and economic conservatives would scream bloody murder if McCain chose the Huckster...
...He’s a political adult...
...And the nominee is judged by the quality of his pick and even by the smoothness of his selection process...
...But both are pro-choice on abortion and would horrify social conservatives, an indispensable part of the Republican coalition...
...Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, preferred Romney over McCain in the primaries, but never endorsed him publicly...
...Romney is a known quantity...
...There are a number of popular Republican governors— Charlie Crist of Florida, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Haley Barbour of Mississippi—but they fall short of CheneyLieberman-Gore stature...
...He’s a pal of McCain, a brave backer of the war in Iraq, and now the most prominent Democratic supporter of McCain’s presidential bid...
...McCain already has trouble with conservatives and picking a Democrat would make things worse...
...McCain would throw away the experience issue if he named a much younger running mate or someone without national stature or a background in world affairs...
...She also said in a campaign appearance: “Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign...
...That’s criterion number one...
...And they had no signifi cant drawbacks...
...If he’d run a more spirited presidential campaign of his own this year, he’d be the obvious pick for running mate...
...McCain doesn’t have much of a pool to choose from...
...McCain will turn 72 on the eve of the Republican convention this summer...
...In Obama’s 2002 speech, he opposed the invasion of Iraq...
...He also wants someone who won’t subtract from his campaign in any serious way...
...Governor Matt Blunt of Missouri, 37, and a handful of others have had their names trotted out...
...Just how important compatibility is—that is something McCain will have to decide...
Vol. 13 • March 2008 • No. 26
