[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20080218" target="_blank">Courting a VP</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> February 18, 2008

Reeling from losses on Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney officially dropped out of the presidential race on February 7. Last week he proceeded to endorse his one-time Republican rival John McCain. <br> <br>The suspicion is that Romney is hankering to be McCain\'s vice presidential pick. As the GOP\'s more conservative second-place candidate (who also conveniently comes from a northern state) Mitt would indeed be an attractive pick for McCain the Red State moderate. <br> <br>But then there\'s Mike Huckabee, who refuses to drop out of the race and endorse McCain even though it is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for him to win the nomination at this point in time. But by continuing to hang around, and win votes in conservative states, Huck\'s hard-to-get act may ultimately make him even more attractive than Romney. <br> <br>Or McCain could go with someone completely random. He is a maverick after all.

[Shablabar]

Ha! Love it. But has it actually become mathematically impossible for Huckabee to win, now? I haven't been following. One would think he would have dropped out...

[Kjorteo]

The first Republican candidate to secure 1,191 delegates will win the nomination. John McCain currently has about 800 to Huckabee's 200. There just aren't that many delegates total, so yes, McCain could pretty much lay out his "Bwahaha, you fools, now that I'm in power here's how I will kill you all" speech now and still have the nomination cinched.

Anyway, the way I see it, McCain is in trouble with his VP pick. The radical right hates his guts, and the independent/moderate left (the kind that might actually like McCain in other circumstances) would flee in terror at the sight of Huckabee or anyone else McCain could possibly pick that would appease the radical right. Since he literally cannot lose the nomination at this point, the option that probably makes the most amount of sense from a strategic standpoint would be to focus on the general election, ignore Rush Limbaugh, pick someone relatively moderate, and hope Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, hopefully after as exhausting and divisive a primary as possible.

A McCain/Huckabee (or even McCain/Romney; Romney is pretty scary as well) ticket would scare off the independents and probably cancel out Hillary's polarizing status, and probably lose horribly to Obama/Anyone. Then again, if the Republican candidate can't get the Republicans to vote for him, that doesn't really bode well either. So...yeah, he has a rather tough decision ahead of him.

[Pitchfork]

I wonder if McCain would have the balls to pick Lieberman. Although Joe might be a Secretary of State pick if McCain wins.

[guest55]

Pitchfork wrote:

I wonder if McCain would have the balls to pick Lieberman. Although Joe might be a Secretary of State pick if McCain wins.

I would think more along the lines of like Secretary of Defense or something. But a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be funny as hell. I can think of it now...

McCain-Lieberman '08
Let's piss everyone off!

[BartSimpson]

McCain can still lose. Huckabee needs to obstruct him enough to force a debate at the convention where said debate will be McCain's to lose.

On the Democrat side it is starting to look like Obama will carry the elected delegates while Hillary is sewing up the so-called 'super delegates' who can vote however they want.

Hillary might steal the nomination from Rochester.

[Kjorteo]

I suppose it would be a rather interesting change of pace for the left to have its obligatory controversial stolen election before even making it as far as the general election this time.

[devinhallsworth]

Heh, Im actually thinking it could be condoleezza rice that gets a shot at the VP spot.

Its true that she is one of bush's sidekicks but the same people who are already opposed to mccains stance on continuing the war in iraq are obviously not going to be put any further off by rice.

That and she has the potential to silence the people on the far right who are crying out that they would rather vote clinton than mccain.


I've heard a lot of people comlain about her record as a diplomat but in my opinion a true diplomat should be abrasive as all get out. As evidenced by the UN's various failures you cant make progress with cautious words and empty threats when the people you are trying to negotiate with are willing to blatantly murder civilians.

[JJ]

I also like it when two minorities are in the race, because that way people have to actually focus on the issues, and less on what a grand "historic first" it would be to elect candidate X. If it was like, Hillary Obama vs McCain Rice, then either way we'd be getting someone historic, so that's one less tired talking point to evoke.

But then again, as Hillary vs. Obama has shown, sometimes the battle of "which specific minority is more symbolically important" can get pretty ferocious as well.

[devinhallsworth]

And if it comes to that(which I hope it doesnt as their are way more important issues and being a woman or black doesnt change a persons stance on issues) rice trumps them both.

[EmperorLiam]

McCain could die any day now... I'd stay in just for that reason alone.

Anyone that thinks Rice and McCain like each other needs to lay off the crack, they are from totally different Eras. Rice is a Cold War expert, thats it... she has nothing else going for her, McCain is for competence, Rice is a symbol of incompetence.

Obviously Mitt will be VP, and McCain will die in office, thats the best guess anyone could make... theres no convincing evidence to indicate otherwise.

[fire_i]

Personally Rice as VP would scare me, but that might be a good strategical choice - however, I'll agree with Kjort on that one and say that it might be an even better idea for McCain to pick another moderate as sidekick and try to suck away the moderate vote. Anyway, I doubt the most conservative elements of the USA would not rally to the Republicans at the last second if it seemed like the Dems were to win the election, whoever is the GOP candidate.

With the Republican race essentially pocketed, the already obvious rift between the Obama and Clinton clans will probably be made even more evident in the next weeks as the Democrats' race will gather most of the media attention. At the moment I would call this even more of a potentially decisive factor in the long run as I did the last time.

[Psudo]

It's pretty ridiculously unlikely that McCain would pick Lieberman or Rice. Lieberman doesn't want it. Condi Rice has never declared White House ambitions, with those only being suggested for her by the grassroots operation "Think Condi". Why would the office go to someone who doesn't want it? Isn't that Harriet Miers thinking?

[Calbeck]

Rice will only scare off the "OMG 9/11 PLOT" types, but almost all of those are going to vote whomever the Dem candidate is anyways. To everyone else, she's a picture of calm confidence even under the worst of personal attacks. She'd also reassure a lot of people who, as Liam mentioned, expect McCain to drop dead in office from old age. Beyond that, she has not evinced a desire for the executive mansion, but would she do it "for the good of the party" if asked? I think yes.

Mathematically, McCain hasn't QUITE won the nom, as even with Romney's votes he's still 30 short. And Repub delegates for out-of-race candidates can vote any way they please at the convention. So Romney can't exactly order his votes to go for McCain, nor can Guiliani.

One should also note that Huckabee's big win here isn't getting the nom, it's getting noticed. If he manages to finish up ahead of Romney for second place, no matter how distantly behind McCain, it helps him with the GOP movers and shakers in future career moves. Especially if he does it without violating his promise of bowing out once the math finally does settle in McCain's favor.

[WBenson]

It's not mathematically impossible for McCain to lose, it's just highly mathematically improbable. I mean, Huckabee could get every delegate (or even all but a few less than 30) up for grabs between now and June, but that's not going to happen.

I don't like that Huckabee is so popular. That's just my hatred of anti-families-we-don't-think-jesus-likes politics, though, and my belief that secular governments make for just laws.