Put yourself in John McCain’s shoes for a minute and help him select a running mate. I know the bench is weak, but I’m sure you can come up with something.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Wait a second. Isn’t Cheney the VP for life? (Or does it just seem that way?)
Ha. I was totally just about to post this but you beat me to it!
Think Condi.
I suppose Ron Paul would pacify one chunk of the extreme right, and preempt him from running as an independent. Huckabee would pacify the theocrat right but drive away the social darwinist right. Romney would get the Mormon vote that McCain probably has anyway. I would urge him to choose Cheney and rake in all those bucks from the Masters of War.
Or to put it another way, no vp choice can bind up the GOP’s bleeding sores. Poor things.
I think it’s a pretty safe bet that it won’t be any of the other Presidential contenders.
I’m going to hold out for Sam Brownback.
How about Rick Santorum of the great state of…well, where exactly does he live now? I believe that he’s available. < shudders >
nope, rick hates McCain. Well, not “hate” exactly. He just doesn’t think that McCain’s a conservative. Santorum is (was) fully in the Romney camp. H said so last week on “Hannity”, and it was TOTALLY TEH AWESOEM!!1!
you must have missed this hilarious diary.
seems to me the jeebusites turn out more votes than the club for growth, making Huckabee the obvious choice.
the crew of losers mentioned in that weekly standard article was good for a laugh, as was the comment about the Huckster being a “class-warfare liberal on economic policy”.
I think Lieberman will crossover into the Republican party and run with McCain. They’ll do this thinking, hilariously, that it will persuade Democrats to give them crossover votes. 😉
Now that’s a startling and interesting idea. It would not only make people turn off the tv as soon as the words “McCain/Lieberman” were spoken, it would get HolyJoe out of Congress (I guess?). How’s that for a twofer?
Has anyone in the history of the US has ever lost as a VP candidate for two different parties?
There is no limit to what God can do.
McCain/Traitor Joe will shore up any wandering Democrats from voting Republican. Traitor Joe, didn’t help Al Gore much, be nice to see him sink McCain too.
he could do a Putin and name W.Bush; they’ll eat cake, play guitar and continue to the ‘100 years in Iraq’ until victory.
If that doesn’t work (Bush maybe looking forward to brush-cutting in Crawford); there’s Mitt and Huck (McCain just had nice words to say about him)
Also Sen George Allen who escorted him to CPAC.
Bay Buchanan
The Fundies already hate McCain, bringing a Mormon onto the ticket isn’t going to help that.
ahh yes, but look at her creditials from Reagan era, Treas of US (youngest in history), her stand on immigration – 2 issues where McCain has a perceived weakness. And no one has ever successfully gotten a word in edgewise when she decided to go on a tear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Buchanan
Those are good points.
I think if McCain picks someone who is unacceptable to the fundie base though, he’s in danger of facing an independent challenger from the religious right.
IMHO, this is the best case scenario for Democrats.
i think dan quayle is available
he is young, good looking, has on the job training.
it worked in 88
Hopefully it would get him out of Indiana for awhile.
I have a feeling it will be Giuliani, especially if Obama gets the Democratic nomination. McCain-Giuliani vs. Obama-Sibelius would be a classic showdown of fear vs. hope. Young voters, being fearless and hopeful, will vote for Obama, but boomers and older, who are more fearful than hopeful, will vote for McCain. Strong advantage to McCain.
If we’re playing Red/Blue again, then the best picks are Pawlenty or Tommy Thompson. Either of those pushes a purple state Red, and if the Democratic candidate wins all the states Kerry won, plus Ohio, but minus Wisconsin or Minnesota, it’s President McCain.
I don’t think McCain has to, or should, worry about the GOP base. The base is fractured anyway, and appealing to one segment will alienate another. Besides, they’ll mostly come around to McCain by November.
We here in MN are thrilled to note that Pawlenty probably screwed himself out of the VP slot by failing to deliver MN to McCain.
I’m thinking he’ll pick Huckabee. It will give him points with the religious right, which he needs. And Huckabee is a likeable guy.
Besides, if Hillary is the candidate, it will give him a great chance of beating her in her home state.
The governor of Florida – the guy who looks like J. Peterman. McCain owes him. He’s from a big state. He’s a governor. He’s not Mike Huckabee.
rumor is that he is gay. Same reason that Lindsey Graham is an unlikely pick. GOP no likee.
Yes, that could be a problem. If he gets picked we’ll know how much they hate Huckabee. 🙂
I was gonna say Larry Craig. He’s said he’s not gay.
Given that the Club For Growth crowd will never be able to bring themselves to truly get on board publicly with anyone currently left standing, I think McCain will throw his lot in with the religious right crowd and tap Huckles. Dobson just gave his “personal endorsement” to Huckabee. Huckabee as a running mate would insure the majority of the Dobson crowd will at least show up in November. And most of the rest of the evangelicals will likely fall in line. The Party needs the foot soldiers that they bring to the table. The Limbaugh/Hannity faction will eventually fall in line, but their strong pimping all these years for the Bush catastrophe has left them with little clout right now to push their agenda. And in the end, the blatant hypocrisy demonstrated by the inevitable flip-flop that Limbaugh and Hannity do will be duly swept under the rug, ignored and forgotted by the pundits and commentators.
The Republicans will coalesce, in some form or fashion, in time to be very competitive in the fall. Especially given the corporate media’s inherent loving of all things McCain. It will not be a cakewalk. Nothing is assured and there is still a lot water yet to go under the bridge.
Some headlines just leave you at a loss for words.
Was the writer shooting for a just a little snark here?
Bush wants more of same in White House
Hmmmm…….whoda thunk it???
Richard Simmons. He could give some pep to McCain who always looks like he is sleep walking through his speeches.
I was going to say Jack LaLane…he could make McCain look young, or at least undead.
I couldn’t help but notice in the news snippet this morning, on the platform with Big Mac were Sam Brownback, Lindsey Graham, and Frank Keating.
Via Antonio at Pubdef:
He reprints the whole press release.
Thrilling performances … lol!
And by the way – Jerome Armstrong wonders:
I can explain. Obama and Clinton spent time and money in the blue parts of the state that any Democrat needs to win Missouri whether in a primary or especially in a general — the St. Louis area, Kansas City area and Boone County. They both had on the ground organizations there. They both ran TV ads. And Obama beat the pants off of her in those areas.
As far as I know neither one of them spent much time or effort in outstate. Hillary did send Bill and Chelsea to Springfield (and Obama sent McCaskill and Jean Carnahan there too). That strategy worked for Obama only because of the size of his win in the blue parts of the state. If the size of his win in the blue areas would have been smaller he would have lost – exactly how Democrats lose to Republicans in general elections here.
Since most of outstate was ignored, it was almost like a beauty contest there. Hillary is irrationally hated in outstate Missouri by Republicans and the few Democrats out there have spent a lot of time defending the Clintons. They know her. I don’t think its any surprise that she did ok there in a Democratic primary. She generally won 58-45 which is about what polls showed them at before Obama started campaigning and closing the gap in the cities. Obama does better once people get to know him and the outstate Dems didn’t get to know him. (And yes there was his funny name to worry about and in southern Missouri maybe some racism.)
You can’t extrapolate from that anything with respect to the GE. The best Democratic candidate will not win outstate Missouri. It is Republican. All you can do is make the other side work hard for their margin of victory.
excellent analysis.
Thanks. It actually is a bit simplistic on the chances in outstate in a GE because there are a few counties in outstate that will go Democratic in a GE. Not a lot but a few. But I didn’t go into those since it was still essentially a beauty contest in those counties anyway.
If you want to feel good about the prospects of the Democratic candidate winning Missouri this year check out this diary at showmeprogress.
I should point out that I think even Hillary can win Missouri this year although the margins might be tight. Obama on the other hand could have a resounding victory here. One caveat on Hillary – if she gets the nomination in a way that the black community deems illegitimate and causes them to stay home she will lose Missouri. Because you can’t win Missouri without good turnout from the cities.
David Shuster suspended by NBC
http://mediamatters.org/items/200802080007
wonder what will happen if I write Clintons pimping daughter to encourage super delegates to vote for mom? I guess Schuster better watch out!
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2008/01/conspiracy-watch.html
Giuliani?
HELL no!!! Too many downsides.
Ron Paul? Whaddayou, kiddin’ me or what? Paul’s to the keft of Kucinich, fer chrissake.
Lieberman? A JEW!!!??? While trying to get the fundies to vote for him? Please.
Romney? Possibly…but Huck’s as good or better with the fundies and a MUCH better campaigner.
Colin Powell? An interesting possibility of he would go for it, especially against an ticket that included Obama, but I think he is perceived as too…anti-Bush. Not reliable. Maybe a double agent of some sort.
Condoleeza Rice? Also interesting. Probably not, though. Betcha ol’ John doesn’t really like uppity wimmens much. Besides…I’ll bet that she would be TERRIBLE on the stump.
Huck’s the one.
Betcha.
AG
Anti New-Con.
long shot, assuming he goes for a woman if hillary wins the nom: kay bailey hutchinson, texas.
and he’s apparently dismissing calls for a regionally balanced ticket…but with st. mccain, tomorrow’s always a clean slate.
lTMF’sA
bush/cheney, but the republicans are giving it a good try.
Sheesh, people! Isn’t it obvious?
Alan Keyes! He’d be like the anti-Obama.
Of course, McCain being as old as he is, he might not make it through four years. And Keyes as president would be pretty scary.
So McCain should have himself embalmed before the election, just as a precaution.
Alan Keyes! I’d almost forgotten about him, which IMHO is a good thing!
Lindsey Graham. He’s been quite an effective tool for the neocons, the unitary executive gang, the Mammon-worshipping treasury looters, (Grover Norquist & Co, and the religious wingnuts.He earned lots of points maneuveri9ng Roberts and alito onto the Supreme Court and more points for removing the rights of habeas corpus for detainees. He’s also from the south and he’s every bit as ambitious and crazy as the looniest of the wingnuts.
If the speculation about him being gay proves impossible to squelch then he’s out, but otherwise he’ll be the likely VP pick.