McCain's VP Will Be Mitt Romney

Posted By: Stonecipher

August 28, 2008

There are rumors that John McCain will make the utterly classless move of leaking his VP choice sometime tonight during Obama's convention speech.  Even if his campaign manages to show a rare display of restraint we'll still know who the pick will be sometime before the weekend rolls around - the official announcement is expected to come on Friday.

So who will it be?

Mitt Romney

Sure Tim Pawlenty (Gov. of Minnesota), Joe Lieberman (Jerk - CT) and Meg Whitman (CEO of eBay) also appear to be on the short list, but the reality is neither of them will help McCain.

Some say Pawlenty will give McCain a boost in the Upper Midwest, but despite winning two gubernatorial elections, Mr. Pawlenty has never broken the 50% barrier winning with 44% in 2002 and 47% in 2006.  And aside from the outside chance he might deliver Minnesota's 10 Electoral Votes, unless McCain's strategy is to re-enforce his message of boringness, P-yawn-lenty is a real bad choice.

Moving down the list of bad choices to Joe Lieberman.  If there's one thing Joe knows it's losing elections.  In 2000 he lost with Gore.  In 2004 his Joe-mentum ran him into the ground as a presidential candidate.  And then in 2006 he lost to Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senatorial Primary.  Only by leaving the Democratic Party and splitting the race three ways instead of two was Lieberman able to cling to his Senate seat.  So even though it'll never happen, please John, please...please take Joe Lieberman as your VP.

As for Meg Whitman, of the 12 people who know who she is, six of them think she's fantastic and the other six despise her.  So she's a wash, unless McCain knows of two or three other people on the planet who know who she is and actually like her.

Back to Romney. 

If you look at the numbers (which you can do below) it will become clear that Romney will help McCain in several key states and regions. 

Romney's father was the governor of Michigan and Republicans in the Great Lakes\Rust Belt region are still fond of the Romney name.  He could help particularly in Michigan and Ohio, two states McCain has been targeting with his campaign.

Also, as a Mormon, Romney is wildly popular amongst Mountain West Republicans.  Utah is already safe for the Republicans, but Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada and Montana all have Mormon pockets who are likely to turn out in greater numbers if Romney is on the ticket.  The only other name that could help McCain as much in the Mountain West is Ron Paul...and that ain't gonna happen.

Take a look at some of the primary results below.  The first six states listed below are swing states that Obama won in the primary and McCain lost...interesting:

Colorado - Obama leads 45% - 43%
             - Obama beat Hillary 67% - 32%
              - McCain lost to Romney 59% - 19%
Montana - McCain lead Obama 45% - 44%
              - Obama beat Clinton 56% - 41%
              - McCain lost to Romney and Paul 38% - 25% - 22%
Iowa - Obama leads McCain 48% - 42%
        - Obama beat Edwards and Clinton - 38% - 30% - 29%
        - McCain lost to Huckabee and Romney - 34% - 25% - 13%
Minnesota - Obama leads McCain 47% - 42%
                - Obama beat Clinton 66% - 32%
                - McCain lost to Romney - 41% - 22%
Georgia - Obama trails McCain - 50% - 43%
             - Obama beat Clinton - 66% - 31%
             - McCain lost to Huckabee - 34% - 32%
Alaska - Obama trails McCain - 44% - 39%
           - Obama beat Clinton - 74% - 25%
           - McCain lost to Romney, Huckabee and Paul - 44% - 22% - 17% - 16%

Michigan is interesting, Obama was not on the ballot, but once again, Romney won the Republican Primary there and would likely provide a big bump for McCain there:

Michigan - Obama leads 45% - 40%
              - Obama not on ballot
              - McCain lost to Romney - 39% - 30%

Finally, in the four swing states below Obama lost the primary, but McCain won.  In all four cases, however, Romney was the number two finisher and hauled in a significant chunk of votes:

Ohio - Obama trails McCain 41% - 44%
        - Obama lost to Clinton - 44% - 54%
        - McCain beat Romney - 60% - 31%
Pennsylvania - Obama leads McCain - 46% - 41%
                     - Obama lost to Clinton - 55% - 45%
                     - McCain beat Paul - 73% - 16%
Florida - Obama trails McCain 45% - 47%
            - Obama did not campaign
            - McCain beat Romney 36% - 31%
New Hampshire - Obama leads McCain - 45% - 44%
                         - Obama lost to Clinton - 36% - 39%
                         - McCain beat Romney - 37% - 32%

So there you have it, as far as the numbers are concerned, Romney is really the only pick that makes sense.  The only problem is that Romney and McCain don't really like each other much personally and they clashed many times in the primaries.  Also, Romney is even more rich than McCain, and if he really is to become the running mate he better start counting his houses now.