Romney: The hunt for a running mate

last updated 8 January 2015

“It’s over,” said Ben Jacobs in TheDailyBeast.com. With the GOP nomination in Mitt Romney’s grasp, “the suspense now shifts” to his choice of a running mate. Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bob McDonnell of Virginia have both been rumored—Christie for his boisterous charisma and centrist appeal, McDonnell for his social conservatism. But neither would deliver the electric jolt, or the tactical advantage, in November that Marco Rubio, the 40-year-old Florida senator, would. Candidates usually choose a VP who can help “deliver a swing state or appeal to a voting bloc that otherwise might be lost,” said Jonathan Lemire in the New York Daily News. As a dynamic young Hispanic from Florida, Rubio “seems like a strong bet to do both.”

Those “tactical” picks are less effective than people assume, said George Will in The Washington Post. In the 16 general elections since World War II, 10 presidential candidates have lost the home states of their VP picks. And are Hispanics really such a “homogenous cohort” that adding the Cuban-American Rubio to the ticket is going to win over Mexican-Americans in Colorado? No, what Romney really needs is someone with the “intellectual firepower” to expose President Obama’s tax-and-spend budget policies. Who better than the telegenic young author of the GOP’s alternative budget plan, Rep. Paul Ryan? Ever since President Obama attacked Ryan’s budget as heartless “social Darwinism” last week, said Chris Cillizza in WashingtonPost.com, Ryan’s “stock has soared” in the “veepstakes.” Romney has already embraced the Ryan budget, so it makes sense “to fully embrace the man, too.”

A woman would be better, said Laura Washington in the Chicago Sun-Times. A “qualified, credible, charismatic woman” could help narrow the yawning gender gap between Romney and Obama; unfortunately, “the pickin’s seem slim.” South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has ruled herself out, and Susana Martinez of New Mexico is an unknown, untested half-term governor—and we know how that worked out with Sarah Palin in 2008. Who says this is Romney’s choice to make? said Ed Kilgore in TNR.com. “Hard-core conservatives” still don’t trust Romney, and may well now demand one of their own on the ticket—a Ryan, a Rubio, or even a Rep. Allen West, a hard-right congressman from Florida—as the price for their support. Romney’s choice of a running mate, in other words, may be largely “out of his hands.”