True North

Since the GOP nomination’s been wrapped up for almost three months, now, the question “Who’ll Mac pick for VP” has been gurgling about the place.

Governor Pawlenty, of course, has been a key contender for a long, long time; young, great approval, decent if not invincible record of success as governor and legislator, conservative enough to not spark a rebellion in the provinces, and he supported Mac when it wasn’t cool to be in the McCain camp.

But as Gary Miller at TvM notes in reversing his own prediction:

The problem is that the GOP has a a dearth of talent in both our gubernatorial and congressional ranks. I couldn’t help but read this Redstate roundtable on possible veep choices and feel discouraged — much like those who participated in the discussion.  The most likely choices all have significant electoral or ideological shortcomings…

Which takes out Sanford, I think, as well.  South is out in the GOP.

Miller:

My reptilian brain stem has been working on finding someone who meets the following seemingly impossible criteria: 1) palatable (if not exciting) to conservatives; 2) satisfactory name recognition; 3) geographic advantages; 4) able to reaffirm McCain’s maverick creds; 5) able to assume the presidency should tragedy strike; 6) not necessarily currently in politics.

Allow me to offer the name of MSNBC host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough.

Hm.

Hmmmmm.

I had not thought about this:

Scarborough boasts a rock-solid lifetime ACU rating of 95.  Even so, he does not shrink from criticizing Republicans when events warrant so he would help brandish the McCain maverick brand.  He does not harken from, or have any association with, the unpopular Bush Administration or current congressional GOP leadership as he left the House to spend more time with his children in early 2001.  His name recognition is not off the charts but would still probably exceed that of many of the other contenders.

OK.  The affirmative case is there.  The most important thing for GeeEmInEm to do is not blow the case with a complete howler…:

He is obviously telegenic and well-spoken.

Ooof-da.  There ya go.

Now, I’ll cop to the fact that I watch very little cable news and almost no cable talk shows.  But the times I”ve seen Scarborough I wasn’t especially impressed with the “speaking” bit.  I’ll allow that I could be wrong.

Someone convince me.

Miller also noted:

Meanwhile, two of the more exciting prospects, Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin, are long on vision but short on experience.

Compared to Obama and Clinton?

I’ll admit I’ve gotten a bit more excited about Jindal lately.  I think his pluses far outweigh his minuses: Young, solidly conservative without the “paleo”, “neo” or “doctrinaire” labels, ethnic, in-but-not-of the south…

…and Catholic.  Michael Medved noted at dinner the other night that Catholics whom make under six digits - a fair chunk of the “Reagan Republican” coalition of 28 years ago - will likely be the swingiest of the swing votes in this election.

Somebody convince me.

Cross-posted and comments welcome at Shot In The Dark.