CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER McCain's supremely cynical VP option
By Muhammad Cohen
HONG KONG - While the Democrats escalate their catfight, the next item of
interest for Republican insiders is John McCain's vice presidential choice.
Suggestions for the Arizona senator's running mate range from the sublime to
Condoleezza Rice.
"This job isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit," Franklin Roosevelt's vice
president John Nance Garner famously declared, and despite all the fuss made
about choosing a running mate, the second name on the ticket usually has about
the same impact. Unless, of course, that pitcher flies in the face of a
listener or that choice
flies in the face of convention, or at
least conventional wisdom.
Since McCain will be 72 years old on election day (ages on that date cited
throughout), the conventional wisdom says his vice presidential choice will
matter more than usual. The age factor not only increases the risk McCain could
die in office, but that he could decide against a second term, leaving his vice
president as the favorite to run in 2012. If you're on the other end of
McCain's phone call offering the second spot on the ticket, though, keep in
mind that three far younger recent presidents - John Kennedy, Richard Nixon and
Bill Clinton - left office, or nearly did, against their will. Still, McCain,
who likes to say he's "older than dirt", needs a more youthful running mate.
Gender, racial preferences Conventional wisdom also says that because he's a white man facing a
black man or white woman (barring some extraordinary occurrence) at the top of
the other ticket, McCain should have a female or minority (or both) on his
ticket. Since McCain is a senator - and his wife runs the family business he
married into - he should have a governor or someone with an administrative
background. Since McCain is a moderate Republican, he should have a rock-solid
conservative on the ticket. Since he represents a western state, McCain should
tap an easterner, preferably from a swing state that the running mate could tip
into McCain's corner.
No one fits all of those criteria. McCain's former rival for the nomination
Mitt Romney may tick the most boxes. Given his amazing reversals of belief
between governing Massachusetts and running for president, a bit of gender
bending or a race change shouldn't be beyond Romney. There's little hope he
could deliver Massachusetts to the Republicans, but his father George was
governor of Michigan, Mitt won the primary there in January, and Democrats
could suffer in the state due to the fight over the primary date that's left
the state without any voice for choosing the nominee.
But it wouldn't be a perfect marriage: McCain can't stand Romney, and nearly
everyone knows it, especially Romney. As vice president, Romney could look
forward to four years of snubs and worse. Moreover, support for Romney, who
vastly outspent Republican rivals during his primary run, is millimeters deep.
I wouldn't put him on the short list.
McCain's last standing rival, Mike Huckabee, became everyone's favorite
evangelical during his campaign. It's hard not to like a bass-plucking Baptist
preacher. But some Huckabee stances - he doesn't believe in evolution - scare
moderates, and he puts the fear of god in fiscal conservatives who believe on
the seventh day the Almighty pledged, "No new taxes".
Crist almighty? Virtually every Republican governor has gotten at least a glance as a
McCain running mate. One of the favorites is Florida's Charlie Crist. He first
came to national attention as state attorney general "Chain Gang Charlie",
advocating reinstatement of putting inmates to work outdoors shackled together.
Florida is a key state to win - ask Al Gore - Crist is enormously popular, 52
years young, and very tight with McCain. During his 2006 gubernatorial run,
Crist asked President George W Bush to stay away while welcoming McCain.
But Crist may be a bit too much of a maverick for the Republican knucklewalkers
McCain hopes to energize. As attorney general, Crist bucked the far-right
fringe by respecting Teri Schiavo's right to die in that ugly case. And, like
McCain, he's one of these family values guys who's been divorced (a year after
marrying his one and only wife ... hmmm). As governor, he's tangled with
insurance companies, so there goes the free market vote. Both of those crowds
would prefer Florida's ex-governor Jeb Bush, but with the Democrats trying to
portray McCain as George Bush's third term, there's no way the name Bush would
go on his ticket.
As in Michigan, the Democrats' struggle over Florida's unauthorized early
primary could give the GOP an edge. Add that Crist's fingerprints are all over
the scheme to move the dates, and Crist can probably help McCain more
advocating at home than becoming a national target.
Pennsylvania's ex-governor Tom Ridge is considered an economics and
administrative whiz, cutting taxes in Pennsylvania while creating a surplus.
Even the private sector thinks he's got something on the ball; he's a director
at Home Depot, Hershey and several security related ventures.
Ridge's last government post was as the first secretary of Homeland Security in
the Bush administration. The department has gotten less than rave reviews
across the political spectrum for its organization and execution, and Ridge
verged on national joke with his color-coded security alerts. For all his
attributes, putting him on the ticket could invite questions about national
security, otherwise a slam dunk for McCain.
Cowboys and Punjabis Beyond white guys, the field gets a lot more interesting. McCain can
outflank Democrats in the minority derby with newly elected Louisiana Governor
Bobby Jindal. The 36-year-old Roman Catholic son of Punjabi immigrants, Jindal
is a darling of Rush Limbaugh.
Before winning the governorship on his second try, Jindal was twice elected to
Congress. He's also worked on healthcare issues at the state and national
levels, and his knowledge in this area could negate Democrats' perceived
advantage. At Louisiana's Health and Hospitals Department, the state Medicaid
budget went from deficit to surplus; don't ask me how a state program aiding
the poor runs a surplus, but conservatives eat it up. He's also a strong
advocate of offshore oil drilling. Put aside your doubts about his readiness to
be president and star this longshot in your program.
Alaska's Sarah Palin is lauded as the nation's most popular governor with
approval ratings consistently in the 80s and 90s since taking office in 2006.
Even my Democratic friends in Alaska give her high marks for sweeping out the
state's corrupt establishment, one activist calling her "the anti-Condi". Point
guard Palin led her basketball team to a state high school championship, she
was voted Miss Congeniality in the Miss Alaska pageant, her eldest son enlisted
in the US Army last September 11, and her husband works in the oil fields. She
blends folksy populism, anti-tax orthodoxy, and a libertarian bent.
She's also one candidate who deserves the label pro-life, and that likely takes
her out of vice presidential sweepstakes. Last week, Palin announced that, at
age 44, she's pregnant with her fifth child, due in May.
If "anti-Condi" is out, what about the original with her two-fer as a black
female? Condoleezza Rice's performance as national security advisor -
dismissing that August 2001 memo warning "Bin Laden determined to attack inside
the United States" with "It wasn't something that we felt we needed to do
anything about" - her errors (or lies) about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
supporting the invasion, and her lackluster stewardship of the State Department
may have finally convinced the public she's a serial incompetent who keeps
failing upward in the finest Bush administration tradition.
Recall that she was president Bush's top advisor on the Soviet Union when the
Berlin Wall fell; the US was no better able to deal with the Soviet collapse
than Mikhail Gorbachev. Rice, 54, has never run for public office, and, with a
manner as brittle as her hair, it's hard to imagine her standing up to the
scrutiny of a presidential race. Unless of course, as her performance and her
name suggest, Rice really is a Chinese agent.
Colin Powell is a black who's never run for office but is widely, warmly
admired. But he's nearly as old as McCain, 71, and says he doesn't want the
job. After serving as the nation's top military commander and secretary of
state, Powell likely doesn't relish a pitcher-of-spit post. Powell may have
been as badly damaged as Rice by his association with the Iraq invasion. More
importantly, neo-conservatives still haven't forgiven Powell for not ousting
Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War in 1991.
Hail Mary play Former Oklahoma quarterback and congressman J C Watts is a friend of
McCain. But he didn't make a lot of other pals in Washington during eight years
on Capitol Hill. Although he keeps his finger in politics as a pundit, Watts
seems more content to be in private sector. Even though he's just 50, there's a
sense that, eight years removed from his last campaign, Watts' time may have
passed.
Is there a black man out there who would firm up McCain's right flank, get love
from the Republican establishment, and, unlike Rice, at least potentially
appeal to African-Americans? Yes, and he's been hiding in plain sight since
1991.
At its heart, the vice presidential choice is a cynical, craven appeal to
voters. On one hand, the vice presidential nominee is supposed to be ready for
the presidency, and voters can even prefer the running mate to headliner. But
the presidential nominee absolutely, positively doesn't want the vice president
to become president. The Clintons raised the cynical art form to a new low in
recent days with their suggestions of Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama as
Hillary Clinton's running mate while questioning his fitness for the top job.
But when it comes to cynicism in politics featuring race, one name should leap
to mind: Clarence Thomas. Thomas is the porn-crazed office masher Poppy Bush
nominated to the Supreme Court when the nation's first black justice,
monumental civil right pioneer Thurgood Marshall, stepped down. Bush called
then 43-year-old Thomas "the most qualified candidate" - although the American
Bar Association denied him a "qualified" rating - and said race had nothing to
do with the appointment. (Any God worth his salt would have turned Bush into a
pillar of it then and there.) At the darkest moment of his confirmation
hearings, Thomas flung the race card onto the table, claiming sexual harassment
allegations against him were "a high-tech lynching of uppity blacks".
When I first imagined Thomas as a vice presidential nominee, I thought he'd
lend McCain's ticket symbolism, a bit of ideological and racial
counterbalancing, while secreting himself in chambers. But this weekend, by
chance I caught Thomas' 60 Minutes interview from last September and saw
how Thomas has honed his oratory since those confirmation hearings.
Thomas, beneficiary of racial preferences, makes an articulate, superficially
compelling argument about why he wants to close those doors to other minority
members. Thomas claims from his perch on the Supreme Court - where his vote,
among other things, decided the 2000 presidential election - that those
preferences never helped him. Rice suffers from the same delusion, but she
can't express it with the narrative of scrabbling in the swamps of Georgia and
a freedman's plot in Savannah that Thomas can. He would be an asset on the
campaign trail.
But the most cynical part of putting Thomas on the ticket is perhaps the most
appealing to Republican grandees. As a sitting Supreme Court Justice, appointed
for life and virtually untouchable, Thomas would have to be nuts to trade that
job for the vice presidency. But that doesn't mean he can't run for the office
while keeping his Supreme Court seat. It's possible that he could serve as vice
president and a Supreme Court justice at the same time, but the simpler
solution would be to resign as vice president if he's elected.
Trent Lott won re-election to a six-year term as Mississippi senator, but
resigned a year later to become a lobbyist. Thomas would simply be setting the
clock further ahead. Thomas' resignation in November would let McCain pick from
a large field of Republican worthies likely to be out of work after the
November vote. A pitcher of spit that's a heartbeat from the presidency looks
pretty good if you're unemployed.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America’s
story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of
Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com),
a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal,
high finance and cheap lingerie.
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