fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Veeptalk

There has been a fair amount of chatter about VP choices this week, spurred on by Romney appearing with McCain at a campaign event and remarks by a McCain campaign staffer, Bloomberg’s introduction of Obama earlier this week and by the Casey endorsement of Obama.  The idea of selecting Casey seems far-fetched, and not only because […]

There has been a fair amount of chatter about VP choices this week, spurred on by Romney appearing with McCain at a campaign event and remarks by a McCain campaign staffer, Bloomberg’s introduction of Obama earlier this week and by the Casey endorsement of Obama.  The idea of selecting Casey seems far-fetched, and not only because he is pro-life in a party that isn’t, but also because selecting him sends the signal that Obama needs help in Pennsylvania in the general and because it puts two first-term Senators on the ticket together.  Having two Senators on a ticket is generally a bad idea anyway (it usually isn’t tried, it just barely worked in 1960, and definitely didn’t work in 2004), and having two of them with a combined six years in the Senate come Inauguration Day is a gift to McCain.  The same goes for speculation about selecting Webb.  The Democrats have a problem that, even though their bench is fairly deep, a lot of the people on it are rookies, so to speak.  You can rattle off more than half a dozen solid-sounding suggestions, including Strickland (even though or perhaps because he is a Clinton backer), Brown, Bredesen, Gregoire, Napolitano, Webb and even Sebelius, and then realise that four of them would receive the same label of “inexperienced” that Obama has already been working against all campaign.  Choosing either Dodd or Richardson would be helpful in overcoming that kind of attack.  However, a choice of Richardson would, among other things, keep the divisions from the primaries front and center and be a constant irritant to former Clinton supporters.  As a matter of competing for an important swing state, choosing Richardson might not be a bad idea, but the question becomes whether adding Richardson harms the ticket in other parts of the country.  Despite the margin of Casey’s victory in 2006, it’s not at all clear that he could reliably deliver Pennsylvania.   

The Republicans have the problem of having a very weak bench that doesn’t offer them many attractive alternatives.  The fact that Rob Portman’s name keeps coming up with remarkable frequency is a sign that the GOP has extremely few plausible options.  The choice of Romney seems uniquely designed to maximise McCain’s problems with conservative voters on a couple fronts.  The movement conservatives wary of McCain’s flirtations with Democrats will not be reassured by the selection of someone whose conservatism is of such recent vintage, or at least they shouldn’t be if their objections to McCain are not simply poses.  As I suggested during the primaries, Romney will not represent competent management and economic know-how to economically anxious voters in the Midwest and elsewhere, but will serve as the living embodiment of corporate America and economic globalisation.  If McCain gets undue credit for authenticity, he still benefits from this undeserved public image, so adding the consummate phoney Romney to the ticket tarnishes what Romney would inevitably call the “brand” of McCain.  When the election may hinge on strong results in the Rust Belt, including chances of poaching Michigan and Pennsylvania, it is actually a very bad idea to put Romney on the ticket.  While Romney has the native son angle in Michigan, more Michiganders in the primary voted for someone else and the Romney coalition is heavily dependent on party regulars, who are already going to be backing McCain.  It’s not clear that McCain can’t already win Michigan without Romney anyway; the drawbacks of a Romney selection are numerous, and the benefits seem few and far between.  There is also the problem that McCain lied about Romney’s views on the war, which reminds everyone not only of the personal antipathy between the men but of McCain’s willingness to be utterly dishonest and unscrupulous when he has to be.  This is obviously something that McCain doesn’t want people to notice about him. 

Choosing Huckabee will be “doubling his trouble,” at least with party leaders and pundits, and this will hurt his already weak fundraising and push elite movement conservatives away from him, but as a matter of winning the most votes it might not be such a bad idea.  Huckabee’s very late, opportunistic turn towards restrictionist views on immigration (which restrictionist voters embraced) could help inoculate McCain against immigration-related defections, and his social conservative credentials are pretty much impeccable, and he has significantly more experience as a government executive than Romney.  Electorally, Arkansas seems safely in the GOP column, so Huckabee doesn’t add anything there, but he should shore up McCain’s support on the right with some religious conservatives.  Huckabee doesn’t help with Catholics, but it remains to be seen whether a VP choice could drive away Catholics who are already drawn to supporting McCain.  Huckabee did finish in second place, after all, and has the second-largest number of delegates, which would seem to make him a more logical choice for uniting the party around the nominee.  However, the disproportionate hostility to Huckabee in the movement is so great that selecting him would create a problem for McCain with conservative elites that he doesn’t need, and Huckabee’s policy ideas, or lack thereof, do not complement McCain’s own aversion to policy detail.  In that respect, and probably in that respect alone, it makes sense to select the super-wonk Romney. 

Update: James adds:

Until then, we can revel in the karmic blowback involved in an Obama/Casey ticket, to wit: the endless ridicule heaped on the right’s most ardently Christian second-string pols boomerangs back as people seriously consider betting all the marbles on the guy who beat Alan Keyes and the guy who beat Rick Santorum.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here