Karl Rove disagrees but I think there is still a really good chance. Karl Rove also thought the Bush would become president in 2000 and maintain the job in 2004. I did not. So you can see who much better at this game I am than him. With that said, here goes nothing:
Yesterday Huckabee won in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and West Virginia. In every one of those [southern] states, save one, McCain trailed by no less than 2% of the vote. It would make no sense for McCain to pick up Romney as a candidate since he has no appeal on the more populous side of the Mississippi River (Romney’s pretty popular amongst men in cowboy hats; I can’t explain it.) And quite frankly, McCain’s irregular conservatism is outperforming both Romney and Huckabee, so it makes little sense to look at more traditional Republicans since, it seems, there’s some dissatisfaction there. Picking anybody from the Bush Administration to capitalize off some name recognition would be a mistake given the high disapproval ratings there and who else does anybody know?
McCain has already proven he can get votes in the big states: he won California by a good margin and he was basically declared the emperor of New York yesterday. But a Huckabee nod for Veep hurts Clinton where right where she lost to Obama yesterday. In addition to canceling her substantial homefield advantage in Arkansas (also Huckabee’s homefield), Huckabee can pull the same evangelicals that gave Bush the White House in 2004.
I’ve already said I think McCain is likely to do better against Clinton than he does against Obama; with Huckabee as his running mate, the race between them gets even closer.
I’m ignorant of the field of Democratic possibilities for Veep, except the governors of Kansas and Arizona (which are really only good options for Obama, if they’re good options at all.) Clinton has already made strong moves toward the center in order to make herself more appealing to moderates and swing voters (e.g. by proposing an anti-flag burning bill). So a running mate that appeals to the center doesn’t seem like a great option: undesirable for the liberal base and unlikely to compel additional swing voters to go Democrat. The vanilla-coated Evan Bayh who dismissed the chances of a viable run when he discovered that Clinton was running is an uninspiring choice. Bayh is just popular enough to win a senate seat in Indiana against nominal Republican contenders (and he wins that seat based mostly on the lasting reputation of his dad and not because he spends a lot of time here meeting-and-greeting.)
I fear that Clinton may have to look further left than her typical vote and she should try to reach across the generational divide to really inspire Democrats to come out for her and help her win where McCain/Huckabee is strong but where she is weak. Which, unfortunately means heading to the South. But what can be waiting for her down there? Is there even one youngish, Democrat, that is likely to appeal to (or at least not disgust) evangelical voters in the South that is also not just a Republican in disguise? Oh! and who has the requisite experience to take over as president in the event that Clinton is incapacitated?
Max Cleland isn’t young and I don’t know if he’s more to the left than Clinton (although I would doubt it) but ever since the Bush administration questioned the disabled veteran’s patriotism he has served as a rallying point for leftist bloggers and other Democratic activists. He’s a lifelong resident of and ex-Senator from delegate-heavy Georgia. He even has executive branch experience (as Georgia’s secretary of state). As a board member for the Export-Import Bank of the United States he has some free trade cred to calm the minds of big business Democrats that might be wary of Clinton’s anti-NAFTA talk–and for that matter hits McCain where he’s weakest: with the economy.
And, I think this is interesting: Very recently the Bush Administration has come under some criticism that they effectively blocked the 9/11 Commission investigation. A lot of people are pretty upset by this now, but they can’t say they weren’t warned. Max Cleland resigned from the 9/11 Commission precisely because he said the Bush administration was influencing the potential outcome in a way that would be more favorable to it.
And, not that it should matter, but Cleland is very white and very male, which may put some people at ease by putting someone in the White House that looks like them. As I’ve said previously, with all the talk of the evangelical vote, the Hispanic vote, the black vote, and the woman vote, there is still a very large group of White Male Voters Over the Age of Fifty.
Furthermore Cleland hits McCain in another tender spot: with veterans. Despite his POW status, McCain has few friends in the veteran camp because of his push to normalize relations with Vietnam and his recommendation to end the hunt for living POWs. He’s even been the victim of a whisper campaign that he was a Manchurian Candidate-esque operative for the baddies back when he was being tortured by them. And to add insult to injury, in 2002 McCain was still stinging from the filthy way he was betrayed by the GOP and he stood up to defend Cleland as an American hero who’s patriotism was beyond reproach. How could the DNC spin an endorsement from the Republican nominee for president? I can see the ads already.
I’ve not heard anybody else mention Cleland, but if Clinton gets the nod he seems a logical option. Furthermore, I’m not recommending Cleland, I have no idea (for the moment) what his senatorial record looks like. I’m just saying that Clinton is likely to choose, if not Cleland, somebody that looks a lot like him on paper although more to the left and younger, if that’s an option.
