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What Might Have Been

Similarly, had John McCain lost with Tim Pawlenty as his running mate in 2008 (and he would have), Pawlenty would have had at least as good a shot as Mitt Romney of taking the nomination this time around, his uninspiring persona notwithstanding. ~Noah Millman It’s an intriguing suggestion, but I doubt it. Losing VP nominees […]

Similarly, had John McCain lost with Tim Pawlenty as his running mate in 2008 (and he would have), Pawlenty would have had at least as good a shot as Mitt Romney of taking the nomination this time around, his uninspiring persona notwithstanding. ~Noah Millman

It’s an intriguing suggestion, but I doubt it. Losing VP nominees rarely return later to become their party’s nominee, and when it has happened it has sometimes been many elections after the VP nomination. Yes, it happened in 1984 and 1996, but Mondale had been the Vice President when the Democrats lost in 1980, and Dole had to wait twenty years for “his turn” to arrive. Except for Mondale and Dole, no postwar losing VP nominee has prevailed or even been all that competitive in later contests. Quayle expressed interest in running during the 2000 cycle, but he couldn’t raise any money, and some conservatives talked up a Kemp candidacy at the same time to no avail. This is why a VP nomination for Pawlenty in 2008 wouldn’t have done him much good, and it is why Palin is not considered “next in line.”

Had Pawlenty been chosen in 2008, he would have been saddled with all of the baggage of the association with McCain without any of the benefits of the independent cult of personality that grew up around Palin. People wouldn’t have been asking, “Why can’t we have Pawlenty/McCain?” as some of Palin’s fans said about her. They would have been complaining that there was hardly any difference between the two of them, and the muttering and dissatisfaction with McCain would have bled over onto Pawlenty.

Pawlenty would not have had the opportunity to distance himself from all of the positions that he had taken before then, and he would have had to endorse some positions as McCain’s running mate that conservatives disliked. McCain supported a cap-and-trade position during the campaign, and Pawlenty would have had no difficulty agreeing with that. He would have been introduced to the country as a proud supporter of cap-and-trade instead of an embarrassed former supporter. Instead of being able to dodge the bailout issue by claiming to be a merely “reluctant” supporter, he would have been forced to defend McCain’s support of it.

Reinventing himself as the enemy of bailouts is already not very credible, but it would be even less so if he had been McCain’s VP choice. Unlike Palin, he would not have legions of die-hard fans who couldn’t care less about policy. One mixed blessing for Pawlenty is that he would already be nationally known, but everyone would have already formed an opinion about him, and it would have made it harder for him to run later as a “fresh face.” While Pawlenty may have resented being passed over in 2008, he ought to appreciate now that McCain unwittingly did him a favor by allowing him to remain in relative obscurity.

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