Here are some of her votes. Her ACU voting lifetime record is 91 percent. She is strong on free trade and seems to be a relatively conservative and corporatist Republican on economic issues. She’s way up in the betting markets for the Republican VP spot, about 30 percent last I looked. Note that she is not pro-life according to conservatives. She has been very pro-drilling and very active on energy issues. Since picking Mitt Romney would violate all known economic models of rational choice, and picking a woman would pop the Democrats’ post-convention bounce, I suppose this is a rumor to be taken seriously. Here is her Wikipedia page.
Sorry to disagree, but it’s an open secret in TX political circles that she’s going to run for TX GOV in 2010. I would be very surprised if she was the Veep pick.
Tx gal – if you were considering a run for Tx governor in three years, and got offered the Veep spot, would you turn it down?
If she loses, she can still run for governor, though she’ll be somewhat damaged goods; if she wins, she’ll have the influence to make her choice of candidate for 2010.
Picking a woman isn’t going to automatically equal votes. After a year to Hillary, I think we’ve gotten USED to the idea of a woman in a position of executive power.
McCain is going to need someone to add more zest to the ticket, so to speak. Not energy and change in the same way as Obama, but someone who is exciting.
I would say Huckabee fits the bill better than anyone else, or possibly an executive adviser known for experience and dignity. Powell, perhaps, though he’d never accept. Condi Rice might be a more realistic option
It’s an open secret that virtually every Senator looks in the mirror every morning and sees a future president.
It’s also an open secret that being vice president gives you an edge on becoming president, and gives you an ever better chance at becoming your party’s nominee.
Finally it is worth considering what would happen if a Democrat woman ran against a GOP man for president, and contrast that with a GOP woman who ran against a Democrat man for president. Which woman would have a better chance at becoming the first female president of the United States?
I’d bet on the GOP woman getting more crossover votes.
Which betting markets is she doing well in? Does anyone have a link?
“all known economic models of rational choice”… OK, name two!
Given what McCain has said about economics in the past, should we be at all surprised if he did pick Romney?
Indeed, McCain’s lack of economic intuition is probably the reason why his form of campaign finance reform was largely a failure. (Don’t we agree?)
I’m tangentially interested in this topic, because, as I blogged earlier, I’m trying to understand why the Democrats picked their Vice President and had their convention first.
I think a game theoretic model would have both candidates refusing to release their vice presidential pick first, as it would allow the other candidate the edge in making a reactive pick.
Since my blog post on that topic, we seem to see Republicans doing just that (encouraging alternates to Veep frontrunner Romney that would do more to benefit McCain vs. Obama-Biden).
So, what’s going on? Why the seemingly bad game? And at least as importantly, why the complete lack of commentary on whether it’s bad game and why it occured?
HA, It’s tradition that the party out of power hold its convention first. It’s a little weird that the Dems waited soooo long for theirs, as McCain is accepting federal matching funds and can continue raising primary cash until his convention. Obama OTOH has turned down federal matching funds. This could turn into a textbook strategic blunder, as he needs to raise some $300M to effectively match McCain’s federal matching funds route (since they have to continue spending to raise more), and Obama has slipped off the pace.
If McCain selects a woman VP, it’ll be Meg Whitman the former Ebay CEO. She’s one of his economic advisers and some insiders around McCain have been pushing Whitman for weeks.
Here’s the problem with McCain choosing any woman: Hillary Clinton supporters are Hillary Clinton supporters more than they are “voting for a female.” Many democratic female superdelegates warned Obama that choosing any woman other than Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius for example (made Obama’s shortlist), would be consider a token choice and a major slap in the face.
If McCain were to pick a female, it would be obvious/blatant pandering and women voters would more than likely be offended, not supportive.
Lastly, consider Hillary’s and Bill’s strong endorsements for Obama at the DNC the last two nights, it stands to reason that Hillary supporters will consider both her wishes and their own self-interests and codify their party once again.
Simply, if McCain were to pander and select a woman VP, it’d likely be a failure and result in siphoning an insignificant number of votes.
If McCain wants to win, he needs to shore up the conservative base and energize the Evangelical voting block. He could hit a conservative homerun and select Mike Huckabee, but he won’t. But he might choose Tim Pawlenty who brings some interesting things to the ticket: executive political experience, puts a key swing state in play (Minnesota), is a true conservative, is pro-life, and brings a youthful face to the ticket. Pawlenty’s major flaws are, (1) It’ll take 2-3 weeks just to introduce the country to his biography since he’s so fresh, and more importantly, (2) In the VP debates, he’ll get slaughtered by Joe Biden.
“Many democratic female superdelegates warned Obama that choosing any woman other than Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius for example (made Obama’s shortlist), would be consider a token choice and a major slap in the face.”
It would be pandering for Obama to do so, but not really for McCain. Obama had the choice to take Hillary, but rejected her. McCain never had that choice. It’s the rejection that is causing the ill will – a woman scorned.
That 30 percent number is starting to look like manipulation mischief in the middle of the night. She’s back down below 10.
Since I don’t want McCain to win, I sure hope that he goes for a “conservative home run” and picks Mike Huckabee. The independent swing vote isn’t looking for a super conservative ticket. McCain and Huckabee would lock up the pro-war and socially conservative voters, but would surely turn-off independents and crossovers. Ditto Romney.
I don’t know how much difference it will make, but from watching the primary debates I go the impression that McCain really dislikes Romney. Indeed, I got the impression that the other contenders felt the same.
McCain got a big laugh at one point, IIRC, when he turned to Romney and, in the context of changes of position on issues, said
“One thing’s for sure, Mitt. You are definitely the candidate of change.”
Whwther any of that will matter in the decision I don’t know. I personally think that Romney would be a poor choice for McCain. The guy is hollow, and that will show in the campaign.
Why not Paris Hilton?
Oh, that’s right, she’s not 35.
Wizard, VPs weren’t worth much in ’88. (1) That was before the internet/media/24/7 news cycle culture. (2) We’re now post-Cheney. He elevated the VP to a meaningful position in American elections.
The current mood in our country regarding VPs is that while they may not make the ticket, they could break it. There’s a growing sense that a VP should be ready for primetime, ready to actually help govern, not just be moral support.
If the Palin leak holds up, I’m looking pretty prescient. I still wonder why almost no one (particularly Democrats formulating strategy) signalled that they saw this coming in advance. And Intrade failed pretty badly no matter what. The veep stocks have been pretty clearly following the headlines, rather than predicting them.
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