And then there were two

February 7, 2008

There wasn’t any real doubt before Mitt Romney ended his presidential campaign, but now that the former governor has officially called it quits, and John McCain’s nomination is all but assured we have a new question: what is McCain going to do with Mike Huckabee?

Mr. McCain is now left with one serious opponent — Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. Mr. Huckabee has proved this year to be an articulate and affable candidate, and his surprise showing in winning a half-dozen Southern states on Tuesday was one reason that Mr. Romney bowed to what was inarguably the inevitable and quit.

But Mr. Huckabee is a candidate with some shortcomings — in particular, his lack of experience in foreign affairs — and, more significant, not much money to soldier on. What is more, Mr. McCain has a big lead in delegates coming out of Tuesday night, and under party rules, Mr. Huckabee would have tough job catching up even if he had the money to do so.

Which, of course, he doesn’t. For that matter, I’m not at all convinced Huckabee is even going to try. He’s been effectively auditioning to be McCain’s running mate for a couple of weeks now, and given that he has no practical shot at catching the Arizona senator, it’s hard to imagine Huckabee launching a no-holds-barred offensive against McCain now.

So, what’s McCain to do with his only remaining primary opponent who isn’t Ron Paul? Kevin Drum offered a good lay of the land the other day.

Fact 1: John McCain is weak among evangelicals and hardcore conservatives. Fact 2: He was kissing Mike Huckabee’s ass big time in his victory speech last night. Fact 3: He and Huckabee cut a deal on Tuesday to keep Mitt Romney from winning in West Virginia. Fact 4: Huckabee isn’t going to win the nomination, but he’s staying in the race anyway. There must be a reason, hmmm?

Speculation 1: McCain will choose Huckabee as his VP in order to shore up his demographic weaknesses for the general election. Speculation 2: He’ll throw Huckabee under the bus just as soon as he has this thing sewn up. Which is it?

Anything’s possible, of course, but I’m leaning towards Door #2.

Here’s the rub: the same gang of far-right voices who hate McCain, and are looking for some kind of reassurance from his campaign, aren’t especially impressed with Huckabee, either. He raised taxes as governor, used to reject conservative ideas on immigration, and his understanding of foreign policy is similar to that of a child. Let’s not forget that for a long while, Rush Limbaugh was railing two GOP candidates: McCain and Huckabee.

Tapping Huckabee for the ticket would offer McCain some cover with the Dobson crowd, but that’s really only part of the anti-McCain contingent. For Limbaugh, Malkin, Coulter, & Co., this move would only make matters worse. (Indeed, it’s not just the clown caucus of the party — National Review and the Weekly Standard railed against Huckabee’s incompetence for quite a while once he emerged as a credible candidate.)

With this in mind, I’d expect McCain to give ol’ Huck a call and say, “Mike, you’re great, and if I’m elected, Health and Human Services is all yours.”

And who would be on McCain’s short-list? It’s a little early yet, but I’m guessing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, and South Dakota Sen. John Thune would be top contenders.

Who do you see on McCain’s short list?

“And then there were two”? Must be a public school graduate.

  • I’ll take door #2 as well. Huckabee is a little bit flaky to be the running mate of a man who would hit his mid-70s during his first term if elected. The VP spot is going to have to go to someone reliable.

    All your choices are good ones. I’d add Gov. Crist in Florida (popular, big state governor and McCain certainly owes him), Sen. Graham in SC, or maybe a bold choice to underscore his maverick myth like Hagel or even Lieberman.

  • “And then there were two”? Must be a public school graduate.

    Right — Ron Paul still has a realistic chance at the nomination. Sheesh.

  • McCain’s short list? Some assholes.

    Oops,sorry. Let me raise the level of discourse a bit. Jeb Bush is a clean articulate Republican. William Bennet. Fred Thompson. Mitt, if he wanted someone to actually manage the government.

  • I would love to see a Ron Paul – John McCain debate. Ron Paul will finally get the air time to call McCain out on the carpet as a murdering, warmongering, and hate-filled man that he is.

    Aren’t all of you ready for a President who won’t lead us into war? I’m a die-hard Ron Paul supporter, but my number 2 and 3 choices were Kucinich and Gravel. I just seriously think that Obama, and especially Clinton, would be just as warmongering as any Republican. After all, they’ve voted for the funding for the war, just like the Republicans…and Dem party has certainly failed its 2006 campaign promise. Back a true patriot who will get us out of empire-building!

  • Huckabee is still helping the terrorists win, Romney told me so just a few hours ago. More seriously, I think there was a chance in a 3-way race that McCain would eventually tap Huckabee as VP, but it is less likely now and I don’t see it happening. Though frankly your scenario about appeasing the Limbaughs of the world is unlikely to be a factor, it is to McCain’s benefit if the extremists in the party continue to hate him so I would think that works in Huckabee’s favor if anything.

  • Here is one from “Political Wire” that was just posted.

    The Washington Post’s Paul Kane: “We’ve done a bad job of explaining this, but it is now basically mathematically impossible for either Clinton or Obama to win the nomination through the regular voting process (meaning the super-delegates decide this one, baby!).

    “Here’s the math. There are 3,253 pledged delegates, those doled out based on actual voting in primaries and caucuses. And you need 2,025 to win the nomination. To date, about 55% of those 3,253 delegates have been pledged in the voting process — with Clinton and Obamb roughly splitting them at about 900 delegates a piece. That means there are now only about 1,400 delegates left up for grabs in the remaining states and territories voting.

    “So, do the math. If they both have about 900 pledged delegates so far, they need to win more than 1,100 of the remaining 1,400 delegates to win the nomination through actual voting.

    “Ain’t gonna happen, barring a stunning scandal or some new crazy revelation. So, they’ll keep fighting this thing out, each accumulating their chunk of delegates, one of them holding a slight edge and bothing finishing the voting process with 1,600 or so delegates. And then the super delegates decide this thing. That’s the math.”
    February 7, 2008 | Related News

    I don’t want to say that I told you so but that is the numbers. Now every one wants the supers to vote the way their state voted so therefore Hillary would be the nominee.

    I suppose that their some that disagree but look at: http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/

  • For McCain’s running mate, my money would be on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. He’s as establishment-Republican as they get, having been the former chairman of the RNC, and he also appeals strongly to the southern evangelical base. He also gets points from undecideds for his handling of the Katrina aftermath. If McCain were wise, he’d pick Barbour.

    My hope, of course, is that he will not be wise, and be compelled to pick Huckabee. Watch the independents, undecideds, and moderates go to our side in a flash with that ticket!

  • I doubt if the Rush Limbaughs would be happy no matter who McNutjob picked, but if he picked Huckelberry for VP that would placate a lot of the religious wingnuts. Throw in a lot of centrists who are fooled by the McCainwhore media and you could have a viable threat.

  • If Ron Paul were the nominee, he would fair better against Hillary or Obama. Ron Paul has a different opinion, wheras McCain is so close to being a liberal candidate in my mind.

  • “Now every one wants the supers to vote the way their state voted so therefore Hillary would be the nominee.”

    So therefore, Obama would be the nominee.

  • I think that Huckabee will find himself under the bus and that McCain will choose Sam Brownback to fill the “placate the fundies” slot. Huck has some baggage following him around and I think that McCain would prefer Brownback to someone who also has some stands that raise conservative hackles.

  • #12 – In what world is McCain a liberal? The one in which Huckabee is qualified to be president?

    I don’t know if The Caped Composer’s specific suggestion will fly but his/her thinking is on target if McCain is sane. That, however, does not seem likely.

  • “There are too many rumors floating around as to, er, why Crist is still a bachelor. The GOP will never stand for it.”

    I forgot that the GOP is full of gay anti-gay men.

    (For the record, I don’t believe that Crist is gay…not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

  • Considering the old “heartbeat away from the presidency” question, the choice of McCain’s running mate not only boggles the mind, it becomes a scary choice too. Wow! Huckabee as the theocracy’s stealth Reverend In Chief, or how about Cheney again (four-more-years, four-more-years)? Jeb would be a good choice, or maybe we could get Rush or Glenn to run with McCain, that would quiet the wingnuts—or better yet offer the job to Tom Delay. That would really work to continue the great achievements of conservative ideology over the last decade or so. 😉

  • “Now every one wants the supers to vote the way their state voted so therefore Hillary would be the nominee.”

    If either candidate comes into the convention with a plurality of delegates and the super delegates throw the nomination to the other candidate there will be so much bad blood that McCain’s VP choice will suddenly become very, very important.

    I will not underestimate our party leadership’s ability to do something boneheaded, especially when they’re giddy with the prospect of a sure thing.

  • Can’t be Huckabee. VP may need to know what the NIE is, and who to talk to about fixing it. Maybe the office of Faith Based … it’s a nice corner office, Mike. And it’s in a rural location.

    It’s interesting that McCain’s biggest conservative credential is fiscal conservatism, but he doesn’t really understand economics.

    In today’s CPac speech, he claimed that Obama or Clinton would return us to a time when “government felt empowered to take away our freedom,” “to substitute the muddled judgment of the large and expanding federal bureaucracies for common sense and values of the American people,: “to the timidity and wishful thinking of a time when we averted our eyes from terrible threats…” Wow! FISA wiretapping, Patriot Act, Prescription Drug, No Child Left Behind, “Wag the Dog”, Somalia, etc.

    For VP, how about Lindsay Graham? No one has challenged the “Straight Talk Express” theme yet.

  • “And then there were two.”

    As a public school graduate, my guess is that this is in reference to the book, Ten Little Indians, which we all had to read growing up. Go Agatha!

    Regarding Ron Paul as the third candidate still in the race… REALLY?!?!? Under what circumstances does he play any role in the remaining shenanigans of the Greedy Oil Party?

  • to RJ at @15 go do the math 6 states Obama won on Tuesday have a total of 24 superdelegates.

    I think he will reward his good friend and pal Sen Lindsey Graham. Just a hunch but their two peas in a pod.

  • I think you just put Ron Paul’s name in your article so people would come and read your garbage…try not putting his name in at all and see how much traffic you’ll get. After all, the “serious” candidates should bring you as much traffic as your “serious” writing deserves.

  • to Jim @23 — 6 states Obama won on Tuesday? Are you sure about that number? Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he win a couple of other states prior to Tuesday? Have you looked at the map for the upcoming caucuses and primaries? No offense, but you suck at math.

  • To all who have floated out Lindsey Graham’s name . . . see my above comments about Charlie Crist. Unfortunately, in this country, neither party will field an unmarried candidate over a certain age for a national ticket. Homophobia is just too prevalent. I could care less as to whether Crist, Graham, or Napolitano (a frequent name mentioned on our side as a VP-if-only-she-weren’t-probably-you-know-what) are gay, straight, bisexual, or asexual. I would only care about their ability to make good policy and lead this country. But, let’s face it, most Americans don’t think that way. Most Americans thought that the very heterosexual John Kerry was too “gay,” simply because, well, that’s how the right wing portrayed him. Ditto John Edwards and the haircut story. And when memes like those can be used against straight, married men, you know that bachelors (and, uh, “bachelorettes,”) would be subject to far worse. So, I think it’s safe to say that you can scratch Crist and Graham off the GOP shortlist, and scratch Napolitano off ours. Sad.

  • Huckabee and McCain would be constantly fighting each other. Both have hot tempers.

    L. Graham is one of the few GOPers I respect.

    What GOPer will Obama place in his cabinet ?

  • McCain / Lieberman.

    It’s McCain’s way of running to the middle while telling the base to go screw themselves. He never liked the Dobson crowd anyway. And who else does the base have to vote for? Some will stay home, but the rest will vote Republican anyway rather than for Obama, or especially for Hillary. The calculus is that the base voters who stay home will be outnumbered by the independent-minded voters who will be attracted to these two “straight-talking mavericks.”

  • Okie, Lieberman has stated that he will not accept the VP nomination if McCain offers it to him.

    Coral, in response to your query as to which GOPer Obama will place in his cabinet . . . I would actually hope for two GOPers, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter. That way, both of those senate seats open up, and the Democratic governors of Maine and Pennsylvania will get to pick the replacements!

  • Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. He’s as establishment-Republican as they get, having been the former chairman of the RNC, and he also appeals strongly to the southern evangelical base.

    The GOP nominee will win the South even without strong evangelical support. The only exception to that is Florida.

    McCain will pick someone that helps in a region that is contested. Given that he is in the Southwest and thus close to the Mountain states, I’m guessing he’ll go for the rust belt: West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio…someone in/near that region. Pawlenty or Thune would be near the top of that list, IMO.

  • I vote that Jeb will be VP. I always wondered why McCain hugged Bush on the platform at the GOP convention in 2004 when it looked like McCain was against Bush at every turn (and I actually believed he had integrity). Another friend of mine suggested that Bush promised McCain the party nomination in return for his support on the condition that Jeb be Vice. I’m beginning to wonder if that isn’t exactly what happened…

  • Not necessarily, Edo (gawd, I’m contrarian tonight!) There was a reason that Huckabee, and not McCain, swept the south on Tuesday. In order to win the south, a GOP candidate has to shore up the evangelical base. Despite kissing Falwell’s posterior, McCain is still not a trusted figure among southern evangelicals– all they have to do is look to the fact that he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment. He will definitely need a southerner on his ticket. It could be Barbour (his wisest choice, and the worst option for us, because of the massive fundraising potential that Barbour has as a former RNC chair). Or it could be Sonny “Pray For Rain” Perdue of Georgia, or Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Either way, McCain can’t take the south for granted.

  • *Leans over and smacks Cody the BovineExcrementLackey with “Mr. Crowbar….”

    What—did you just get off the GreyDog, child? Did someone hold a pistol to your face and force you to reply? Your putrid little excuse for a “credible” candidate isn’t going anywhere. Your pathetic money-bowel-movements blew up in your face, and now you want to blame everyone because they don’t buy into your crap? This particular site has displayed several posts over the past few days that literally—and I do mean, for the record, LITERALLY—blew you scurrilous little BovineExcrementBot rodents clear out of the water.

    BovineExcrement claims to have 24 delegates. He claims that he won delegates from a state that’s winner-take-all. Tell me, Coh-Dee—what state did BovineExcrement win? The state of Confusion? The state of Melancholy? The state of Hallucinogenic Euphoria? BovineExcrement’s got NOTHING—and there aren’t enough delegates left for him to win.

    Do the math, child—and if you don’t want people tracking this site because the word “BovineExcrement” gets mentioned, then stop talking about him.

    And—you can’t blame me for mentioning your “cow-pie’s name” on this one….

  • The Republicans convene after the Democrats: advantage Republicans because they have some possibility of tailoring their ticket against the Dems.

    McCain/Huckabee against a Clinton nomination could well be trouble. It would be trouble for Obama too, but maybe not quite as much.

    I don’t buy that the religious right will go out of their way to vote against Clinton, but Huck would bring out the vote. And when he isn’t talking about God or guns, he sure sounds like a Democrat. I could see that ticket doing quite well in WI, MI, and OH.

    The primary turnouts, i think, might be misleading Democrats towards expecting invincibility. The Republicans are a little dejected, and they don’t have any exciting candidates. But they will vote come November.

    Huck’s fun to laugh at, but we laughed at W. too.

    There won’t be a Bush on the ticket…they aren’t stupid.

  • I know this will sound unrealistic…. but after 4 years of Bush Sr, 8 years of Clinton the 1st, and 8 years of Bush the 2nd…. I think we deserve Clinton the 2nd, with VP Jeb Bush…. Secretary of State Chelsea Clinton….. and last but not least lets lock the insemenator William Jefferson in the oval office with the Bush twins to procreate our next leaders…. think it can’t happen? Guess again.

  • Craig, put the TV remote down, and back away from the soap opera very, very slowly—before it devours your mind and spits out the synapses.

    And jackpine, a GOP ticket that has Huckabee on it goes nowhere in Ohio. Kenneth Blackwell should be evidence enough of that, and after the fiasco of Taft, I don’t think McCain will stand a snowball’s chance here in November.

  • “There are too many rumors floating around as to, er, why Crist is still a bachelor. The GOP will never stand for it.”

    Yeah, Crist is in a bind. I’m old enough to remember when Jerry Brown was running against Carter, and because he was still single there were similar whispers. Then Brown takes up with Linda Ronstadt when she was still one hot babe, and the two of them run off to Africa to go camping together. Next thing you know the telephoto lenses are out catching their passionate smooches and tsk-tsking about how unseemly it all is. You can’t win for losin’ in this uptight hypocritical sexophobic country. Either you’re married (to a person of the opposite sex, of course) or you won’t be taken seriously as a candidate.

    Damn! Brown would have been a fine president, and Linda would’ve made one bitchin’ first lady. Imagine the cool parties at the White House, with the Eagles and the Grateful Dead playing out in the Rose Garden. Ah, I guess I’m dating myself.

  • Some good possibilities mentioned above.

    For scary: Rick Santorum

    For obscure (I hear this one mentioned by a caller to C-Span’s Washington Journal Weds morning): Marc Racicot (probably making too much money in the private, i.e., lobbying, sector)

  • George ‘Macaca’ Allen. Sadly, it won’t get him far from Virginia.

    toowearyforoutrage said:
    “Rice?” Is that to say they too can put an African-American or Woman on the ticket? Maybe against Clinton/Obama.

    “Newt?” Two adulterers? Newt divorced his first wife by dropping the papers on her hosipital bed while she was recovering from cancer.

  • Crist isn’t married, but I’m sure they could come up with some clever slogan to put the fundies’ minds at ease. “Crist isn’t married, but neither was Christ.” He could also go with Larry Craig… not only is he married with three (step)children, he has stated numerous times on the record that he is not and never was gay.

  • You realize that if he picks Huckabee for VP, Huckabee will have a very good chance of becoming president down the road.

  • Steve: It is comments like yours that convince me ever more firmly in Ron Paul’s message. Your second grade derogatory remarks only make you and the ones you support look more foolish by the day. Stop beating your head on the floor and throwing a temper tantrum.

    Everyone knows that the media has black balled Ron Paul from the very beginning. If he had had one half as much media attention as some of the others about his message, America would be much better informed on the issues. Get a life already, and grow up a little.

  • If you want to see who the world knows would be a better President go here:

    http://whowouldtheworldelect.com/

    Why isn’t this reported?

    On MTV recently Ron Paul got 47% of the votes. Obama got 33% and Hillary got 9% and AP had the audacity to say that there was no clear winner!! This is how the truth gets published.

    In this article it says “And then there were two” as if Ron Paul who is still hanging in there from the original 11 does not count? He raised more money from the active miltary than any other candidate. He raised more money from the grass roots than any other candidate. He had on hand nearly as much money as McCain when Romney dropped out! His supporters have put forth super efforts to get his message before the public and it barely receives a passing notice.

    Just recently he went to a college where 10,000 attended to hear his message and that does not even receive a whimper.

    He is the ONLY candidate that stands of the constitution for the little guy, He wants to end an illegal war that was based on 935 lies and his oppents want to keep it going? Those of you who support any other candidate are supporting a war built on lies that costs thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

    Wake up and see where this country is heading. We cannot continue to endlessly spend without repurcussions that are getting more and more severe daily.

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