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By Jeff Emanuel Posted in 2008 | Elections | John McCain | Redstate Roundtable | Republican Vice Presidential Nomination | Veepstakes — Comments (127) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Once again, RedState presents a peek inside the minds of those who make up the site's Editorial staff. This week, the RS Contributors debate Sen. McCain's potential Vice Presidential selection.

The big question: who should McCain pick? And, to revisit a question we took on back in February, should McCain try to make his choice early, or should he wait until close to the September convention?

Dan McLaughlin: I have laid out my own rules for who I think McCain should rule out , and I'll just say here that if the choice was mine to make today, I think my preferences would be SC-GOV Mark Sanford, RI-GOV Don Carcieri, and MN-GOV Tim Pawlenty, in that order, although I'm actually leaning towards the idea that Carcieri might be electorally the best bet in helping McCain crack Pennsylvania and maybe even New Jersey.

Continued below the fold...

Pawlenty has the most positives on paper, but I'm worried that his nerdy nice-guy persona would come across as too Quayle-ish for a national ticket that will be relying heavily on McCain's tough-guy image. As for Carcieri, his record as a pro-life, tax-cutting, spending-cutting deep-blue-state governor, private-sector CEO and head of a Catholic charity, combined with being Italian, would definitely bring a lot to the ticket, but my concern would be that he's 65 and not that dynamic a speaker.

Sanford has drawbacks as well, mainly haling from a red state that McCain is certain to win, but he's a true across-the-board conservative who will excite the base, he's just got a great combination of experience as a Governor and Congressman that creates a wonderful contrast to Obama (he's the same age), he's got the backbone to fight his own party on spending (witness the famous stunt where he brought the pigs into the statehouse in a battle over pork), his DC experience means he's more ready to deal with foreign policy than the other two, and I just *love* the way he talks about competitiveness and government spending in terms the average voter can understand, which is crucial because McCain needs help on economic issues.

As for the timing, I'd encourage McCain to get his running mate picked as soon as he can, although of course he shouldn't rush the all-important vetting process. Not only would a completed ticket mean more hands to campaign and show unity to contrast with the Democratic squabbles, but a conservative running mate could do a lot to help McCain raise money between now and September.

Moe Lane: Playing devil's advocate, here: how about actually letting the convention itself decide?

Dan McLaughlin: That won't work, Moe.  First, we have dodged a bullet not having a big fight over convention delegates and in putting a divisive intra-party campaign behind us; why mess with that?  Second, the VP selection is important in part because it's a way for McCain to show people he can make a good decision and, hopefully, one that pleases conservatives.

Mark Kilmer: I do not see this as overwhelmingly important, so long as he doesn't pick a fellow Septuagenerian. Those Republicans who enjoy hating him will continue to do so, and those who clung to other candidates too tightly might not budge either. The general electorate will take the media's spin.

Looking back on history a little, George H.W. Bush won with Dan Quayle on his ticket, bad media rap and all, and Bill Clinton won two elections with a lifeless idiot downticket.

Wait 'til the Dem race is done. Pick a solid conservative, as his first Presidential decision can be said to give insight into his plans for governance. I like Jon Huntsman from Utah and Al Haig. (Oh, why not?) Mitt Romney, who's name I've heard bandied, shouldn't be considered, as some conservatives are now looking at McCain and wondering if they can trust his spoke conservatism. Romney has the same problem.

blackhedd: If it weren’t for McCain’s age and infirmities, I’d say that the veep slot isn’t worth paying any attention to.

Being strategic in terms of making this year’s ticket more electable is one thing. But this year, we need to recognize that the veep pick is an heir-apparent, not a promising face for the future.

Which of the potential veeps could step into the big job, *right now*?

Dan McLaughlin I, too, like Hunstman, he'd probably be somewhere between #4 and #6 on my list.

It's absolutely essential that the running mate be a credible Commander-in-Chief, given McCain's age. I think we want to be able to demonstrate that our #2 beats their #1 on the main qualification for the job.

Leon H. Wolf: Ability to step into the big job *right now* is one of the main reasons I like Carcieri a lot. Yeah, he's not very charismatic, but he's better than Cheney, while exuding the same level of gravitas. Although Edwards was clearly the better TV person than Cheney, I think we won some votes in 2004 on the basis of running a Veep that people felt was tough and able to handle the job if something happened to the POTUS, rather than running a Veep who looked pretty and had a great fake southern accent.

I'm also okay with Sanford, but Carcieri is at the top of my list. I am incredibly fearful, however, that it will be Crist.

Dan McLaughlin: Yeah, maybe I am rememebering wrong but certainly it seemed pretty obvious at the time that Cheney had cleaned Edwards' clock when they debated.  The contrast between having a serious grownup and having...well, someone like Edwards or Obama is one that plays very well for us as a party.

Jeff Emanuel: As the Democratic primary winds down -- I don't expect Hillary! to bow out gracefully until after Puerto Rico, but the nomination there is largely sewn up -- McCain needs to really focus on defining himself before this officially becomes a two-nominee race. McCain's negatives have spiked recently (as has been mentioned recently, independents are starting to see him as "Republican John McCain," not "Maverick John McCain" or just plain "John") and, while he still has plenty of time before the election to campaign on his record and his vision, the amount of time in which he can run, for all intents and purposes, unopposed is dwindling . Before that time runs out, and he has to counter his opponent's attempts to label and define him, McCain needs to do as much self-defining as possible, on every issue from judgment, to personal character, to economics, to security, etc., etc., etc.

I think that the timing for picking a future Vice President currently matters only inasmuch as that selection helps McCain to define himself in the eyes of the voters. For example, if presenting himself as an economic/fiscal conservative is his overwhelmingly top priority, then picking a Veep who can lend that expertise and legitimacy to his ticket is a time-sensitive undertaking. If, though, he is picking a specific Vice President for the sole purpose of securing swing-state votes, or simply to back up his positions, the timing is far less critical, and he should not waste his time now, which he needs to use for continued self-defining, worrying about who his running mate will be.

As far as the individual selections go, my top 2/3 are the same as Dan's, for largely the same reasons. Sanford has a record of putting his money where his mouth is, and a persona that can energize the conservatives that make up the base while not turning off independents who aren't already predisposed to not supporting right-leaning candidates -- something that will absolutely decide this election, as the "squishy middle" that so many in the conservative base see little use for are the voters who will swing their states to the far Left (Obama) or to the center-right (McCain). Carcieri is an intriguing prospect to me; his age notwithstanding, the fact that he can apparently maintain so conservative a presence in the deep blue state he governs is an extremely impressive feat (especially following the fading cacophony of Romney supporters who argued that the liberal leanings in his governance of Massachusetts, such as they were, were forced on him because it simply isn't possible to govern as a conservative in a blue northeastern state). Pawlenty is sort of a "blah" pick in my view; he's all right ideologically (save for his agreement with McCain on AGW), he's an all right speaker, etc., etc. -- nothing special, just "all right."

As Adam so often says, the Vice Presidential pick isn't likely to win much of anything for McCain (though I must admit that the idea of Carcieri and his potential help in PA and the northeast is intriguing); however, with the wrong pick, he can absolutely lose votes, especially from the GOP's conservative base, a percentage of which is still skeptical to say the least about the man who gained notoriety in the first part of this decade for his bipartisan efforts (something which, especially when stacked up against Obama's complete absence of bipartisan work, can -- if defined correctly -- help McCain pick up more of that moderate/independent vote). The wrong choice -- say, a Condoleezza Rice (tied to the Bush administration, a dismal failure as SecState, pro-choice), a Lindsay Graham (immigration, among other things), or a Mike Huckabee (an economic populist, etc.), just to name three, would significantly damage McCain's standing with the conservative base far more than a correct pick would help.

So, to summarize: this decision can wait, outside of its direct contribution to McCain's quest to define himself in the eyes of the nation and the media before this becomes a one-on-one contest...and my top choice is, at the moment, probably Mark Sanford.

AcademicElephant: How about Hoekstra or Portman?  Snagging MI and keeping OH would do wonders for McCain's map, and I think Portman would do as much for PA as Carcieri, if not more.  Portman is also good at managing things, and now has some private sector experience.

Dan McLaughlin: Hoekstra strikes me as altogether too obscure a House guy.  Portman's White House experience is a double-edged sword; it gives him more gravitas and foreign policy experience than your typical Congressman but frankly, the one-liners about picking George W. Bush's budget director basically write themselves. (Bush's trade policy, Portman's other area, may be terribly unpopular in some quarters but McCain has already gone all-in for free trade, and good for him for doing so.)

Speaking of the House, Marsha Blackburn is probably one of the least-bad choices if McCain decides that he needs a woman on the ticket, as she's a wonderful and articulate conservative from a border-South state, but she's only been in Congress two years longer than Obama.

Hunter Baker: Burn it down.  Rick Santorum.

Jeff Emanuel: So....pick a guy who will lose his own state and every other "swing state." I'm just not feeling that. Rather, I'd rather add red to the electoral map (as long as Red, most unfortunately, means R) than take it away.

Neil Stevens: I miss that man, but I have to agree with Dan's rules.  If he couldn't win his own state last time out, he has electoral problems that we don't need on the national ticket.

Yes, yes, I know.  He was the victim of sustained smear attacks.  The Democrats had to run a pro-life candidate.  He got activists mad at him over Specter, but the anger will fade over time.

But job one is winning, and to win we need winners.

Leon H. Wolf: One of our diarists has brought up Sununu here.

It's a suggestion that deserves attention. Sununu is a guy in electoral trouble in his current race, and would be another guy who could help solidify McCain's grasp on the "middle," and further shore up his reputation with the small portion of the Ron Paul crowd that actually leans Republican. I guess the question mark for McCain would be whether he feels like he needs to shore up his support with social conservatives any more, because this pick won't make them thrilled.

Jeff Emanuel: I think that, if any electoral benefit is to be hoped for from the VP selection, picking a guy/gal who is, as you said, "in electoral trouble" in their own state has got to be an absolute no-no.

Leon H. Wolf: That's a valid point, but it has a lot more to do with changing demographics in NH than it does to do with Sununu as a candidate.

Dan McLaughlin: I'm not big on selling out contested Senate seats.  I'd put Sununu on the list for a Cabinet spot if he goes down fighting, like Ashcroft in 2000.

Besides, New Hampshire's a tiny state and McCain's already extremely well-known there and pretty durably popular.  If he can't win New Hampshire as is over Obama, Sununu won't help him, and he won't help anywhere else in New England.  If you are pushing your chips on a single state you go with Pawlenty or Portman.

Leon H. Wolf: Well, I was kind of thinking national appeal, actually.

One thing we haven't considered w/r/t Carcieri is that the ticket would be McCain/Carcieri. Say it. That's an excessive number of hard "c" sounds.

Mark Kilmer: What about Duncan Hunter or Spence Abraham?

Leon H. Wolf: [Hunter] beclowned himself on national TV twice.

AcademicElephant: I bet [Hoekstra] has higher name recognition than Carcieri.  And I have nothing but respect for the man, but saying Carcieri is "better than Cheney" in '00 when Cheney had been a WH CoS, a leader in Congress, Secretary of Defense and run a major international company doesn't make sense to me.

Dan McLaughlin: Well, two points.  First, I think Leon meant better than Cheney in terms of charisma.  I love Cheney and all, and I actually think he's a better speaker than he's given credit for because he's so matter-of-fact and treats his audience like adults, but it's true that Cheney's not Mr. Charisma. 

Second, I guess my point is that a Congressman has to do something to stick out of the crowd.  A Governor by definition governs.  Carcieri's been Governor for six years, he was CEO of a manufacturing company, he ran a charity.  He's got a record to run on, which helps offset being unknown.

Leon H. Wolf: "Better" can be defined in a lot of ways - in this context, it merely meant that he was more telegenic. Still, Carcieri's resume is very impressive.

Also, it's not merely a matter of name recognition - it's that being a governor is qualitatively different from being a MoC, in the sense of preparing a person to be President.

By an odd coincidence, I believe they were born in the same year.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: Five points.

1. Cheney did indeed clean Edwards's clock during their debate. As Robert Draper noted in his book, Dead Certain, whatever one thinks of George W. Bush's intellect, he would at the very least read serious books and entertain serious arguments. Edwards would not do even that. Cheney--as Draper further recounts--nevertheless trained for his encounter with Edwards as if Edwards was the greatest debater of all time. The real Edwards was a pale imitation of the person Cheney trained to debate. The contest was no contest at all.

5. Like his father, Sununu is highly intelligent. Unlike his father, he doesn't gratuitously make enemies via demonstrations of personal arrogance. That and the fact that he is on the side of the angels in the overwhelming majority of situations (at least as far as I am concerned) makes him a very attractive star in the GOP firmament. But--and here is where Dan and I are in accord--I too don't like pulling him out of an important Senate race, forcing the NH GOP to find another candidate and potentially surrendering the seat as a result.

AcademicElephant: Another question would be who do you think Obama might chose, and how would these selections stand up in debates?  That is clearly a question Kerry did not ask himself in 2004, and it hurt him.

It's not a defining question, but something to consider.

Erick: Obama will either pick someone will military experience or be eaten alive.

Dan McLaughlin: Unless the unexpected happens and he takes Hillary, Obama will be under huge pressure to pick someone with military experience.  The exception would be if he takes someone who is seen as otherwise a foreign policy or defense heavyweight like Bill Richardson (don't laugh!) or Sam Nunn.  Like Bush in 2000, he's got to look for foreign and defense policy gravitas.

And McCain should plan accordingly in thinking of matchups.

AcademicElephant: Tony Zinni, come on down!

Mark I: Well, I hate to do it but I have to disagree with just about all of this.  In my view the key criteria for McCain in selecting a VP nominee are age/ability, conservative credentials, and executive experience, in that order.  By ability I mean that the nominee must be someone who the public would implicitly trust to be able to handle the job were something to happen to McCain.  I like Carcieri's resume and intangibles, but his age and the "Who?" factors surrounding him are disqualifying.

McCain should completely ignore any Electoral College considerations when choosing his running mate.  People don't vote for the VP, they vote the top of the ticket.  McCain isn't going to win NJ or PA because he has a favorite son for a running mate.  He will win or lose those and the other purple states based on the strength of his ideas relative to the Democrat's.  Now having a running mate from a swing state who also happens to fit the above criteria is of course the ideal.  But the criteria have to be filled first, the nominee's address should be considered only after McCain is satisfied that he/she fits the bill.

Last, I think McCain should drag out the selection process as long as he possibly can.  In fact, I would say that under no circumstances should McCain pick his VP before the Democrat picks his or hers.  McCain needs press coverage.  Free press coverage.  A properly managed VP selection process, complete with leaked names, helicopter shots of arrivals for vetting meetings, and properly humble "dummy" candidates to keep the press guessing, will generate a lot of coverage for McCain.  There is a limit to this, however, and too much of it could begin to make McCain look indecisive.  But the more juice he can squeeze out of his selection process from the press the better.

Now for candidates.  McCain's running mate must, MUST, reassure conservatives that it is okay to come out and vote for him in November.  McCain will never be a truly one of us, but he can win us by showing that he wants our votes.  He simply must pick a rock-ribbed conservative for a running mate.  Hopefully, that person will highlight a McCain conservative strength, like his stance against wasteful government spending or his pro-life voting record.  I, too, like Sanford a lot.  He easily fits all the criteria and shares common cause with McCain on government waste.  But something tells me he is not the guy.  He didn't endorse in the SC primary this year although he supported McCain in 2000.  I think that was a critical mistake.

He needed to get some skin in the game.  Pawlenty has skin in the game as one of McCain's national co-chairs, but he is a big global warming advocate.  McCain is too, and that's bad.  McCain has to know that picking Pawlenty would hurt him with conservatives on that issue alone.  Not to mention that there is a little of the "Who?" factor with Pawlenty and he looks a little too young.  Chris Cox is a solid conservative and has a personal story in his recovery from a horrible Jeep accident that highlights McCain's own POW biography.  But Cox seems a little wonkish and had a reputation as a Congressman as an aisle-crosser.  McCain doesn't need to remind conservatives that he crossed some aisles in his day.

I think the choice comes down to Rob Portman.  He meets the criteria, is a solid conservative, and is from a swing state to boot.  He has White House experience as a former Budget Director and Trade Representative, giving him experience with spending and business policy, and is viewed as uber-competent.  Some say that he is a Bushie and that factors against him.  But people who want to sweep the Bushes out of the White House aren't voting for McCain anyway and Portman is not exactly Condoleezza Rice.

Conservatives, however, would appreciate McCain picking someone from the Bush Administration who is a solid policy man with an untarnished image.

Dan McLaughlin: Mark, I'm not sure Portman is really all that well known either, outside of Ohio.  In fact, few of these guys we are talking about are.

I'm not dead-set opposed to Portman, but when Bush's approval ratings are in the 20s and 30s, I think there's some work to be done to get distance so people will give McCain a fair hearing on his own merits.

Leon H. Wolf: I agree. I follow politics pretty closely, and I only had the vaguest familiarity with Portman's name before this discussion began.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: Lots of people didn't know who Cheney, Gore, Quayle, Mondale, Agnew or Alben Barkley were, either. That didn't stop the tickets they were on from winning at least once.

Leon H. Wolf: Sure, but my point was that one can't argue against Carcieri because of low name recognition and then put forth Portman as an alternative.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: I understand. And my point is that I don't care about low name recognition. It matters not a whit to me.

I don't know the first thing about Carcieri, so I am not judging him in the slightest.

Jeff Emanuel: All the same, I think that we want to break from the "Bush Tradition" at all costs. Nobody even slightly tainted by this administration can be acceptable.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: The Politics of Leprosy?

It is one thing to say that Andy Card, Josh Bolten, Paul O'Neill, John Snow or various folks in the White House Communications Office should not be considered. It is quite another altogether to rule everyone out on a blanket basis. Does this rule apply as well to Cabinet positions in the event that McCain wins? Well then, so much for the excellent Robert Zoellick being Secretary of State--can't have a former USTR and a Deputy Secretary of State from the Bush Administration, after all. And no jobs for John Bolton, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Negroponte or any other people who actually did good--if relatively unheralded--work during the Bush Administration's time in office.

Before Cheney got picked, everyone talked about what a wonderful Chief of Staff he was for Ford, what a wonderful Minority Whip he was in the House, what an excellent Secretary of Defense he was for Bush the Elder and what a terrific President he would be if only his ticker would be kind to him. Then he got picked and he has been portrayed as the Antichrist ever since. No matter how appealing the person, he/she is going to get slammed as the worst thing to happen to Planet Earth since Menudo. We may as well pick a competent and smart person for the other side to shoot at.

Mark I: So much better than I could have said it.

AcademicElephant: I suppose he could pick a Powell or an Armitage.

Thomas Crown: I actually have a side bet with a friend who owes me a few hundred over the Florida primary results that he picks Powell.

AcademicElephant: Powell's age is the problem there, that's why I thought of Armitage.

Thomas Crown: Powell's military record, and his ability to appeal to squishy idiots who don't think about politics offsets the age issue -- or at least, that's why I'm giving my friend a chance to get his money back.

Jeff Emanuel: Seriously? He could:

(a) pick a guy who oversaw a status-quo, gum-on-the-shoe State Department in much the same go-along-get-along fashion as Rice -- not to mention who has been going out of his way to badmouth the current administration and the Global War on Terror effort? I know that I said divorcing himself from Bush would help McCain, but Powell's leftward spin on the GWOT -- plus the fact that he is, I believe, pro-choice -- would lose a good portion of that conservative base that McCain is still having trouble sewing up (as evidenced in part by the upside-down McCain flags in signature lines here).

OR

(b) Pick the guy who actually "outed" Valerie Plame? That's a great decision, and a wonderful way to both tie himself to a fake-but-publicly-outrageous melodrama associated with the White House, while getting little or nothing of value out of it electorally or popularly.

I think both of those potential selections have to be ruled out out-of-hand.

Thomas Crown: Whoah, there. I agree about Armitage -- aside from political junkies who care about Valerie Wilson, who even knows or cares about him? -- but I disagree on Powell. First, Powell commands enormous respect for exactly the same reasons McCain does: He's ex-military, and he's a "safe" Republican who breaks with the Republican brand early and often. You'd have the military maverick ticket right there. Yeah, you'd lose some conservatives -- not as many as you suggest, but some -- but you'd pick up a lot of the idiots who get distracted by bright flashy things, yet whom we still allow to vote.

We're talking about what McCain should do if he wants to win, not what he should do if he wants to make us happy. He'd be a first-order fool not to tap Powell.

AcademicElephant: I'm not saying I think either is a good idea, but I do understand the enormous appeal of Powell, who is something of a national Saint to much of the nation, compliments McCain's military credentials--and bear in mind most people think  he was right about GWoT policy at this point.

Dismiss away if you will, but I bet they're both getting serious consideration.

blackhedd: Disregard this if the point has already been made. But McCain is unusual among recent Republican nominees in that he has significant potential appeal to moderates. (I’m not a squish, but I’ll trade ideological purity to get power any day of the week.)

Ergo, we shouldn’t be afraid to look for someone with strong appeal to the base (read, strong-on-defense). I can see both Powell (except for his age) and Armitage in this role. Powell has the advantage of meeting my first requirement, which is an individual who *unquestionably* is ready to take over the Presidency at any time.

Interestingly, Obama will be in the same situation, assuming he can overcome our effort to reveal his true nature as a near-radical left wing liberal. Meaning, he has strong potential appeal to moderates. And so he’ll probably be looking for a retired general to be his veep, to fill in his weakness on defense and security.

haystack: Obama would likely take Wes Clark if that were his primary criteria...sheesh but would that be bad...well, good for the fight...bad if he actually won this thing.

Jeff Emanuel: Wes Clark is a Rhodes Scholar with a degree in economics who, somehow, believes that America was "founded on a progressive income tax." That's scary enough in itself, mismanagement of Bosnia/Kosovo aside.

blackhedd: If I were Obama, my attitude would be: winning is everything. Michelle can sort out the personnel problems after we have power.

haystack: I would personally be very un-amused with a Powell pick, but his position on Iraq and the greater ME rides quite well with Mods and Indies.  My amusement is no longer relevant however-there's a general to prepare for, after all...

The I's and M's are, allegedly, voting in pretty large numbers with the "we need a change of course in Iraq" crowd in the polls we keep hearing about...not the code-pinkers and move-oners, mind you...  but I think Thomas is right to suggest that strategically this likely fares best for McCain's need to keep all the independents and the R AND D moderates who are looking for love away from the far-left liberal policies either of the Dems are promising to beclown themselves with.

Mark Kilmer: General Powell has publically stated that he does not know if he'll even vote Republican this year; granted, if he is asked, he wants it, and he and McCain are able to talk Alma into it, he'll vote R if he's on the ticket.

If McCain wants to try to appear to go the "post-partisan" route, the one on which Obama took a wrong turn, Powell would be a natch; it would tick me off, though, having worn this "R" on my lapel... for what?

As for timing, I'm on both sides of the fence.  Part of me says McC should do it now...part of me says he should wait til the Dem nominee is known (probably AT the convention)-heck, why burn up press time until he needs to...let the Dems keep bleeding, let McC keep getting donations in relative peace and tranquility.

Dan McLaughlin: 1.  I got confused because I thought Thomas was saying *Obama* would pick Powell.  Obama's the one who needs a Man in Uniform.  McCain's got that locked already.

4.  I cannot even begin to fathom what Armitage brings to the table....if we're going for an outside-the-box member of the Bush Cabinet, I'd rather take John Ashcroft.  I'm not suggesting Ashcroft, because I stand by what Jeff and I have been saying here about making a break from Bush, but at least he'd bring some things to the table.  He's well-known and probably still popular in Missouri; he's unquestionably qualified, having been a Governor, Senator and Attorney General; he'd cement McCain with the base, particularly conservative Christians; he's earned Strange New Respect for the things that have come out about his battles behind the scenes on surveillance; and his competence at his job was vividly illustrated by contrast to his successor.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: It should be noted in addition that Powell is advising the Obama camp on foreign policy.

Thomas Crown:You're kidding me.

No, wait, you're not. Wow.

I still say he's McCain's best choice.

Ben Domenech: McCain needs to decide whether what he needs in a VP is a role player or a president in waiting.  Sanford would be the best all around choice, but he essentially becomes the frontrunner for POTUS in 4 years, and that has to factor into McCain's choice (sorry, but I really think it will).  I think this may tempt McCain, as it will any Senator, to choose someone closer to his heart - someone older, someone who won't have an eye on his chair, and someone who he trusts (after Sanford did not re-endorse him this time around).

This is, incidentally, the reason why I'm glad Huckabee stayed in it past his curtain call: he reminded McCain that the guy couldn't get away with picking Hagel or Lindsey Graham.  If not for Huck, I think McCain-Graham would be a very real possibility. 

I think Romney is a net negative.  I think Pawlenty is a tossup.  I think Portman is a slight benefit.  I think Carcieri would make a lot of people say "huh", but they might warm to him.  I think Charlie Crist would just be so ... special.  And I think Sanford remains the best all around choice.

As for the more glam picks of the cycle - Barbour, Palin, and Jindal - they all have enough on their hands, frankly, and I think only Barbour would actually say yes if asked.  But McCain doesn't really like Barbour all that much, I think.  And we've already gone through the laundry list of reasons why the normal conservative candidates just don't fit the bill.

In this case, I think McCain has several good potential choices, and only a few who would be total trainwrecks.  When vetting is done, he should announce his choice early - perhaps in the gap before Puerto Rico - and lock up the "see how they all get along" media for a while.

Pejman Yousefzadeh: He should announce his pick right before the Democratic National Convention begins and rob it of oxygen--assuming that we are not, indeed, headed towards witnessing internecine warfare in Denver thus August.

Thomas Crown: I would hit it just after the PR primaries -- that brief lull when the dust is settling, and everyone wants to talk about the Ds, is a great time to steal some thunder.

AcademicElephant: How old is Scowcroft?

Pejman Yousefzadeh: 83.

Dan McLaughlin: He's 83. Seriously, McCain needs someone whose #1 thing is domestic policy cred. Not another foreign policy professional who hasn't been outside the Beltway in decades.

Charles Bird: As I wrote about here, and I know I'm well in the minority, I think McCain should pick Bobby JIndal. Because of Obama's youth, Jindal's youth is a significantly less relevant issue. Jindal is off-the-charts smart, and even though he's decade younger than Obama, his resume is already superior. What's more, Jindal is a rock-solid Catholic conservative, and a southern governor to boot. He is the perfect balance to a McCain ticket.

I know that he hasn't spent enough time in the governor's chair, but McCain can say that our country needs Jindal in national office, but to compensate taking him out of Louisiana so soon, he would appoint Jindal--as his first duty as vice president--to oversee the reconstruction of New Orleans, Bay St. Louis and other areas that are still devastated by Katrina.