Who is the likely running mate for John McCain?”
Republicans, unlike Democrats, often nominate the runner-up as VP, or pick him next time around. (Cheney is an unusual choice in that regard.) So I’d say that if McCain and Huckabee can avoid being to mean to each other, Huckabee is a good choice: solid conservative evangelical credentials, executive experience, and a Southerner. Republicans have a very broad, disparate set of people to unite, and so the runner-up is often of a different wing of the party. That’s what makes Huckabee such a good choice. I have heard McCain playing nice with Huckabee lately, and so I think he’s on the short list. And Huckabee knows that Republicans love to nominate sitting VPs, plus he’s young enough to really make a good run for it in 2012/2016 from that chair. Still, I like the theory that it will be a woman. Even if the Democrats don’t nominate Hillary, they’ve still won a large percentage of the female voter in most years, and polls show Obama also has a strong appeal to women. There’s talk of Condol
McCain’s got a dilemma. He is having a real problem getting the right wing lunatic fringe of Birchers and Bible Thumpers to sign on and they are a major part of the Republican voter base. But if he picks a hard line ideologue to make them happy, it will wreak havoc with his moderate supporters and the cross-over Lieberman Democrats who he needs to actually win in the general election. My gut feeling is that the hard right will eventually cave rather than sit it out and let the Antichrist win so the choice will probably be someone who is (or at least appears to be) relatively moderate. Personally, I think the fix is already in for Huckabee who essentially blew Mitt Romney out of the race by grabbing off the religious nut vote. He’d be the best compromise as the Fundies will go for the ticket with him as VP, in hopes that McCain will die in office, while he doesn’t antagonize the moderates with hard line ideology. Don’t count Joe Lieberman out though. He’d sell his mother for the Preside
It won’t be Romney because he and McCain personally dislike each other a great deal. So who will it be? North Carolina Senator Richard Burr has been mentioned, as has South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Florida Governor Charlie Crist is also a possibility but if like with evangelicals if McCain has to pick a Southerner to win the South this election is over before it starts. He isn’t going to win the Northeast and he isn’t going to lose the South. He isn’t going to win in the Pacific West but he should win the Mountain West so the battleground is going to be the Midwest. I think that Governor Matt Blunt of Missouri would be an excellent choice. He is young and that balances out McCain’s age and he is a Navy vet but most importantly he comes from a state that could go either way this fall. Newt has too much baggage of a cheating on his wife nature and his presence on the ticket would take away the GOP’s ability to remind people of the slimy escapades of Bill Clinton. Mel Martinez of F
