Tuesday, July 22, 2008

McCain chooses Veep, this week?

Robert Novak is reporting that McCain will name his running mate (he thinks Romney) sometime this week. He suggests such timing will draw attention away from the headlines Obama is making on his trip overseas.

The timing thing makes some sense, but Romney, really? I feel like that would just be giving up the race now.

Anybody want to place bets? I still think Florida Governor Crist is probably the guy, but that's mostly because I can't see Huckabee, Guiliani, Romney, Sanford, or Lieberman on the ticket.

8 comments:

Ted said...

Lieberman would be the best choice to maintain McCain's Maverick appeal, but Romney might be a good choice to rally the base. I guess it depends on how much the republican leadership has been pressuring McCain on this one...

GeorgeR said...

I'm not sure if McCain is really trying to preserve his Maverick appeal. (Not to say that he's trying to lose it either, but the media, in my view, has basically treated that as a fact even as he moves much farther to the right on most of the issues for which he got that reputation.) Do you really think Romney would rally the base? He certainly wasn't able to do that during the primary, even with a ridiculous amount of money...

I think the "rally the base" candidate is Huckabee, or maybe Tom Ridge...

I've also heard rumors that McCain really like Bloomberg...I don't think it would happen (I think Bloomberg really wants to follow through with some of the things he's doing in NYC), but it would be interesting...

John T. Reuter said...

Romney will do well with voters concerned with the economy. That's the issue this election is going to be decided on. Romney is also extremely well liked (although I can't really figure out why) by the party's base. All of that said, Romney as VP = easy decision for me (as long as Obama doesn't make the equally huge mistake of picking Hillary).

GeorgeR said...

Romney on economy- yes, people like him for that.

Romney moving out the base? I still don't get where you're seeing that. Romney ran his primary campaign around bringing out the base and failed magnificently. Are we talking about different bases? I was thinking of the generally socially (i.e. religiously) and fiscally (with the exception of big wars fought against terrorism) conservative groups that have to be given credit for mobilizing and placing Bush in office (twice).

Are you talking about the republican higher-ups? That is, Big donors, repub insiders, influential commentators, and congressmen? In that case, you may be right. Romney may be their man...

John T. Reuter said...

Having just been at a State Convention with the Republican "base" (and notably a lot of Ron Paul supporters) I can tell you that they love Romney - at least in Idaho (the reddest state in the Country). I'm not sure why either. I agree that he seems like a disingenuous conservative on moral issues, but for whatever reason they like the guy.

John T. Reuter said...

To clarify, the Ron Paul supporters don't like Romney... or any other candidate that's not Ron Paul. My earlier post was only about the "mainstream" party members.

GeorgeR said...

Huh...that's really surprising. Do they like him more than McCain?

Well, Romney is fine by me. I really can't see how a McCain-Romney ticket taking the country...but we shall see.

John T. Reuter said...

Waaaaay more than McCain... but then I think they may even have liked Obama more than McCain (until, of course, that New Yorker cover).