I continue to believe that the best vice-presidential choice
Barack Obama could make would be for John McCain to chose Mitt
Romney. (Reasons
here).
I'm not a fan of Tim Pawlenty by any means and paricularly find
his
views on the role of government
troubling. I'd much rather have an actual conservative as VP --
somebody along the lines of Tom Coburn, Mark Sanford, or Paul Ryan.
So by no means am I endorsing Pawlenty for VP. However, if I were
to take off my conservative hat and put on my political analyst
hat, Pawlenty definitely appears to be the safest pick on the
reported short list. Like Romney, he has gubernatorial experience,
but he doesn't have the flip flop problems or high negative
ratings. Pawlenty has more appeal among two constituencies that
will be key to a McCain victory -- evangelicals and blue-collar
workers. With Democrats poised to run a campaign portraying
Republicans as out of touch (see yesterday's houses debate), it
makes more political sense to tap Pawlenty, who grew up as the son
of a milk driver, to blunt such attacks rather than nominate
another really rich dude who will only add fuel to the fire.
Furthermore, Pawlenty was a McCain supporter from the beginning,
while Democrats would have access to reams of video of Romney
ripping apart McCain, including on the fact that he doesn't
understand economics. What is Romney's response going to be? That
he changed his mind? Yeah, that'll be helpful.
Unfortunately, whether it's Romney or Pawlenty, either way,
Republicans end up with somebody who supports big government health
care (only in Romney's case he calls it "market-based" because
within a system in which government designed plans are sold at a
government store and purchased by individuals under government
mandates and with government subsidies, there's a role for private
companies).
topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Economics, NATO
