True North

Now that we're having to contend with the fact that McCain is going to be the GOP nominee for President, conservatives attention has shifted to a topic which makes us less suicidal. Lately that topic has been the Vice Presidential pick by McCain and whether there is still hope for the conservative movement in the United States. Rumblings have run the gambit from Lieberman to the reanimated corpse of Ronald Reagan. But one name that gets mentioned alot is familiar to Minnesotans, our Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Ed Morrissey addresses a story in The Politico, and largely agrees that Pawlenty is a fairly likely choice. The problem I have with both is that Pawlenty doesn't really add anything of substance to the ticket and fails to meet many of the usual criteria for picking a VP. Conventional wisdom generally says your VP should do one or more of the following:

1. Shore up issues that you are weak in
2. Come from a region/state you need to take
3. Serve as your heir apparent

First, Pawlenty essentially adds nothing to the ticket issue-wise, and suffers from many of the same weaknesses that McCain does. While he does talk a good game and has done a fairly decent job holding the MN DFL in check on taxes, he has also broken a "No New Taxes" pledge (Bush 41 anyone?) and used "user fees" to raise revenue. He's also apparently drank the Global Warming Kool-Aid and I'm pretty sure he has Al Gore on speed-dial. On immigration, he has occasionally made encouraging rumblings which pan out to be exactly that and nothing more. About the only McCain weakness he addresses is that he has largely been very cool and calm in tragedies (35W Bridge Collapse)....although I have problems picturing him holding McCain back from another angry rant.

Secondly, the region/state issue doesn't strike me as overly persuasive. Most of the Midwest is already GOP territory, or at least Iowa and the Dakotas are. Minnesota and Wisconsin being the holdouts. Wisconsin could very well be considered a battleground regardless of the candidate, especially if you factor out the repeated Democratic voter fraud in Wisconsin. Minnesota...heh, we voted for Mondale! And the GOP has largely lost ground at virtually every position. Only office we still hold is the Governorship, which we barely won and only because every single state resource went to that race and the DFL Lt. Gov Judi Dutcher made a huge bone-headed remark in the 11th hour of the campaign. I think it'll be a generation or more before you can consider even a partial shade of purple.

Third, as far as the heir apparent goes....well the GOP grassroots is getting restless. We've put up with RINOs more often than we've cheered conservatives. We're already having to swallow a McCain candidacy, is putting another center-right politician up as the next in line really going to buck up conservatives. Conservatives are only asking for something (ANYTHING!) to look forward to. They want a reason to vote FOR a candidate, rather than just against a Democrat. Would it really be too difficult to offer them that??

I think there are plenty of other (and better) options for the VP slot. At the top of my list personally, would be either Senator Jim DeMint and Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

Both are VERY solid conservatives, with Sen DeMint being especially notable as one of the few Senators can trust on the whole spectrum of issues. Both do share a downside of lack of experience. However, I consider that minimal as both the Democratic nominees have little to no experience, and the top of the GOP ticket has several decades of experience. Both of them are from the south, which keeps that region firmly in GOP control, countering inroads the Democrats have made in the south as of late.

If I had to pick between the two, I'd opt for Blackburn, for really rather unrelated reasons. The Senate is already a giant clusterfuck, can we really afford to lose a stalwart conservative like DeMint?? The House is slightly less vulnerable and Blackburn's role hasn't been as high profile. Plus she's a woman, which negates some of the Democrats identity politics, if you buy into any of that. Plus how fun would it be to put the National Organization for Women (NOW) in a tight spot. After they hyperactive bitching about how voting for Obama is betraying women, if Obama is the nominee and he's facing McCain/Blackburn, how do they reconcile their past statements?

I'll grant you Pawlenty isn't the worst option you could pick, but if we have to swallow the McCain pill already, can't you toss a little red meat in??

[Cross-posted at EckerNet.Com, comments/complaints/harassment can be left there.]

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