Tim Pawlenty Tipped to Be John McCain's Running Mate During Campaign Swing Through New Hampshire

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is being tipped as the front-runner for the 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nomination, according to CNN. In an exercise approaching Kremlinology, the practice by which Western governments tried to discern the intentions of the rulers of the Soviet Union by parsing their statements and divining their behavior, Pawlenty became the favorite over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney because GOP Presidential nominee presumptive John McCain spoke more warmly about Pawlenty than did other potential Veeps in a meeting with Republican delegates in Rochester, New Hampshire.

John McCain had stopped off in coastal New Hampshire after a visit to former President George H.W. Bush's lair in Kennebunkport, Maine. Bush 41, the father of current President George W. Bush, attended a fund raiser with the 2008 Republican nominee presumptive, thumping the tub for the man who would be his son's successor.

The Boston Herald reports that the Presidential buzz has John McCain picking his Vice President as early as this week, and touts Mitt Romney as the favorite. Romney and his family are vacationing in Canada, at Ontario's Lake Huron. Lake Huron seperates the province of Ontario from Romney's home state of Michigan, where he is highly regarded due to his father, former 1968 Republican Presidential candidate George Romney, having been a very popular governor. Romney, thus, offers John McCain help in two states, not just one, though both traditionally are blue states typically in the Democratic column during Presidential Novembers. In the 2004 Presidential election, John Kerry swamped George W. Bush in the Bay State, but he won Michigan by only 165,000 out of nearly 5 million votes cast, giving John McCain and the GOP wet dreams about carrying the state this November.

"Frustrated"

John McCain, who is running primarily as a war candidate based on his military experience, was humilated lat week when Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki came out in support of Barack Obama's plan to withdraw American troops from his country within 18 months after attaining the Presidency. McCain has been highly critical of the Obama plan, and that criticism is at the center of his attack on Obama, as was evident in his campaign stops in Maine and New Hampshire where he accused Obama of being willing to lose the war to make political gains.

Picking a Vice President would be a gambit to take attention away from Barack Obama's tour abroad, which has certain aspects of a premature coronation of the new President of the United States. ABC News Anchor George Stephanopoulos said on Good Morning America, "They are frustrated in the McCain camp" over the publicity being garnered by Obama. Stephanopolous believes that John McCain will name his running mate, to counter the goodwill being generated by Obama's show of statesmanship.

"I think that Senator McCain and his team will try to counter [the Obama trip] later with more interviews and are even suggesting there's some kind of surprise coming this week," he said. "The surprise is that John McCain is going to announce [his running mate]."

In fact, McCain and former President Bush feigned being amused about reports that the McCain camp was frustrated and jealous over Obama's PR coup during their news conference yesterday at Bush's home in Kennebunkport. Ever the relaxed patrician, George H.W. Bush even kidded with the press, saying they were guilty of media envy.

"We're jealous is all," ANC News quoted the 41st President as saying. Later, at a campaign whistle stop in Epping, New Hampshire, John McCain was asked if he was ready to name his running mate. "We'll announce when we're ready to announce," he said, smiling.

Announcing a Vice President now would have the advantage of circling the wagons early, and having a sharpshooter to help the 72-year-old McCain shoulder the burden of taking on his youthful and charismatic opponent. However, it is an American tradition to announce the Vice Presidential pick at the nominating convention, and what John McCain could gain in the short-term might not compensate for the loss of drama that naming a Veep this early would cause, making the GOP convention a distinct anti-climax that would be avoided by most TV viewers. Picking a Veep is the only drama left at national political conventions.

Barack Obama has shown strength in the Granite State, which typically goes with the Republican candidate every fourth November but increasingly has become a swing state. In New Hampshire, recent polls reveal that Obama has pulled into a statistical tie with McCain, who had led by six points earlier in the year. Blessed with a huge war chest, Barrack Obama can exhaust McCain financially and physically through his shows of strength in traditional red states, as the Republican is forced to shore up his strength in those wavering states, like New Hampshire.

New Hampshire's four electoral votes gave George W. Bush the presidency in 2000, after the right-wing justices on the U.S Supreme Court threw out precedent and, using the 14^th Amendment as their aegis despite being on record as opposing it, put a stop to a democratic election in the state of Florida. The Sunshine state's governor Charlie Crist, along with Mitt Romney, have been touted as potential running mates for John McCain, as has Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

Tim Pawlenty

CNN Correspondent Dana Bash, trying to make some news when most of the media attention is on Barack Obama's triumphant tour of Europe and the Middle East, quoted attendees at a "small private meeting with John McCain" as saying the GOP nominee presumptive dropped a broad hint that he favors Tim Pawlenty as his running mate. Without warning. McCain allegedly told the meeting of Republican delegates to the 2008 Republican Convention that they are "really going to like" the Minnesota Governor.

According to Bash, the attendees of the meeting related that John McCain also "said nice things about Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani, but those appeared to be standard lines he says about former rivals."

When Tim Pawlenty was up for re-election as governor in 2006, John McCain campaigned for him in Minnesota a week before the November 2006 election.

."I know of no one who will make a greater contribution to the future of America than this great leader," McCain said at one campaign stop. "This is the kind of leadership that I'd like to pass the torch to."

In January 2007, John McCain named Tim Pawlenty a co-chair of his presidential exploratory committee, and he eventually was appointed co-chair of McCain's campaign, along with bank lobbyist "Foreclosure" Phil Gramm (who recently was ditched from the McCain campaign for his role in de-regulating banks and causing the current financial industry meltdown) and Tom Loeffler.

Tim Pawlenty is popular among conservative activists who wield a great deal of clout in the Republican Party and who remain suspicious of John McCain. A fiscal conservative, Tim Pawlenty balanced the state budget and eliminated the deficit without raising taxes. He oversaw the overhaul of Minnesota's education system and implemented health-care reforms that reined in medical cost inflation. He also has pushed welfare reform.

Although he also pledged to fulfill his second term and not run for national offiice, Governor Pawlenty is a politician and is prevented from running for a third term in 2010 by term limits. He would most likely would leap at the opportunity to be John McCain's running mate as that would make him a favorite for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination. Tim Pawlenty would balance the Republican ticket both ideologically and geographically, through his conservatism and for hailing from a major rust-belt state in the Midwest.

On the issue of illegal immigration, an area where John McCain is considered "soft" by conservatives, Tim Pawlenty staked out his own position on immigration reform that repudiates McCain's reform plan that has been derided by conservatives as being too liberal and for rewarding lawbreakers with citizenship. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune believes that Pawlenty's immigration reform proposal is his bid for a spot on the national ticket, as it balances McCain's position and would appease conservatives. office when he was up for reelection in 2006.

The problem is he might not bring enough to the ticket. Even if the GOP were to win Minnesota, which is highly unlikely as Barack Obama is very popular in the Gopher State, that would only bring 10 electoral votes to the ticket. Due to its "proletarian chic," Minnesota is more like progressive Oregon or Washington State than other Midwestern States, so having a Minnesotan on the ticket likely will do nothing to shore up Republican support in the breadbasket of America.

Those ten electoral votes are highly suspect in any case, seeing as Pawlenty has never pulled a majority of the vote in either of his election victories. Winning Florida, where Charlie Crist is a popular governor, offers the Republican Presidential ticket a bounty of 27 electoral votes, almost three times as many as the Gopher State. There also are fears that the youthful looking Tim Pawlenty might be characterized as a Dan Quayle-class lightweight by the national media, a fate that Charlie Crist likely would avoid, with his distinguished mane of gray hair. On teh plus side, Pawlenty would not be plagued with the rumors of homosexuality that have stuck to the bachelor Crist, prompting him to marry a woman he has known for less than a year. Then again, gay rumors did not stop Jack Kemp from being named to the 1996 GOP Presidential ticket. (The revelation of a homosexual cabal in the kitchen cabine surrounding new California Governor Ronald Reagan, which allegedly included Kemp, was the reason Reagan was tardy in launching his campaign for the GOP nomination in 1968, according to Theodore White in The Making of the President 1968.)

Thus, one can say that Tim Pawlenty's chances to be named Vice President on the 2008 Republican ticket are robust, but not spectacular. He is by no means a sure thing, as CNN's Dana Bash would have us believe. Florida Governor Charlie Crist is far more popular in his home state than Pawlenty is in Minnesota, or Mitt Romney in the Bay State. (A one-term governor, Romney did not stand for reelection in Massachusetts to avoid the being beaten, and thus lose his chance for national office.) With Charlie Crist on the ticket likely would ensure that the Sunshine State's 27 electoral votes would wind up in the GOP column for a third straight time this century after being won by Bill Clinton in 1992 and '96.

The report that Tim Pawlenty is still the apple of McCain's eye is an example of the ageless American practice, in business and in politics, of "making a horse out of horse----." The 2008 Republican National Convention is going to be held in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is Pawlenty's hometown. He grew up in South St. Paul. As Governor of the Gopher State, Pawlenty is the de facto host to the convention. This likely is the root of John McCain's statement to Republican convention delegates from New Hampshire, "really going to like" Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. If the convention was held in Miami Beach, McCain would have said "You're really going to like Charile Crist," or if there was any possibility of holding a convention in New Orleans (which was destroyed by George W. Bush's negligence), he could have said, "You really going to really like Bobby Jindal."

The Second Coming of Bob Dole?

Contemporaneous reports published in other stories herald Mitt Romney as the favorite. It is felt that Romney's business experience will balance John McCain's utter lack of any involvement with economic issues, other than his ludicrous blaming of Barack Obama for high gasoline prices. Mitt Romney still suffers from the handicaps that destroyed his bid for the 2008 Republican nomination: He is a word class "flip-flopper" on issues, and he is a Mormon, a sect that is disdained by the Evangelical Christians that are one of the main poles of the Republican tent. (Bobby Jindal, in contrast, despite being a Roman Catholic has engaged in excorcisms and "casting out demons." the latter of which is a popular pastime among very conservative evangelicals. It certainly makes Jindal the most colorful of all the contenders for the GOP Veep spot. Let's amend the hypothetical John McCain statement to, "Not only are you going to really like Bobby J., he can help you cast out any entities that are troubling you. He helped my wife Cindy clear out her taste for prescription pharmaceuticals before we launched this version of the Straight Shooting Express. I mean, Straight Talking. Did I mention Charlie Crist? It's time to get back on the bus.")

Mitt Romney would probably do for John McCain what Jack Kemp did for another septuagenerian Presidential candidate, Bob Dole: help him lose.

Tim Pawlenty may very well be a front-runner to become McCain's running mate, but it is unlikely that he will bring the excitement to the campaign that a Bobby Jindal can, who is younger and -- as an Asian Indian -- brings a bit of "color" to the Republican ticket, which will be headed by the whitest of white Cold War warriors, a throwback to a former era. Steve Kornacki of the New York Observer said that Pawlenty gave a "flat" performance on ABC's This Week, in what was considered by the press to be a rehersal as John McCain's running mate. At best, he would be a "generic candidate" for Vice President.

Now in his second term as governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty's star has been fading since George W. Bush lost Minnesota to John Kerry in the 2004 general election, 48% to Kerry's 51%. Pawlenty had failed to deliver, despite Karl Rove's prediction that Minnesota would go red in '04. Pawlenty had been touted as a potential Republican Presidential nominee before the 2004 election, particularly after St. Paul was anointed the site for the 2008 GOP Convention. There was still talk that he might one day head the GOP ticket until his disappointing showing in his 2006 re-election bid.

If Charlie Crist or another candidate gets the GOP Veep spot, Tim Pawlenty likely would be named to John McCain's cabinet, should the Arizona Senator prevail in November.

Sources:

ABC News, "McCain Laughs Off Obama Trip Envy, Considers 'Bold Choice' for Veep"

Blogger Interrupted, VIDEO: McCain VP hopeful Bobby Jindahl has performed exorcisms, expelled demons

Boston Herald, "Mitt Romney 'near top' of John McCain's veep list"

CNN Political Ticker, "Is McCain inching towards Pawlenty?"

Huggington Post, "John McCain: The Second Coming of Bob Dole"; "McCain Camp "Frustrated" With Obama's Trip: Reports"

New York Observer , "What Pawlenty Can't Do for John McCain"

Yahoo News, "Obama's Troop-Withdrawal Plan Backed by Iraqi Premier"