Opinion: A John-John GOP ticket? McCain and Edwards?

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Now, THAT would give Rush a heart attack. And James Dobson’s Focus on the Family headquarters would slide down the mountainside in Colorado Springs.

Such a fusion ticket, some would call it farcical, is obviously not going to happen. But according to a new Gallup Poll seeking possible vice presidential running mates for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee from Arizona, some Americans have not exactly been real close paying attention in class these last 14 months.

Obviously, they’re not Ticket readers.

The first names that come to mind among Republicans thinking of a McCain VP are Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. No surprise there. They’ve both recently been in the race and are well-known.

Yet, with word this past week that McCain has started compiling a long list of running mates, it also seemed a question worth asking. The Gallup Poll did just that, asking Republicans to....

volunteer some names to be McCain’s political partner in the Nov. 4 general election.

Gallup found no real groundswell for anyone.

In fact, Democrats John Edwards and that Judas Bill Richardson slipped into the list, with about as much apparent support among those surveyed as retired Gen. Colin Powell, the former secretary of state in the Bush adminstration and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff for Bush I.

Trouble is, Powell’s hinted he might jump his party too and back Barack Obama. O.K., scratch Colin.

Here’s Gallup’s Republican list for McCain’s consideration:

Huckabee, of Arkansas: 18 percent.

Romney, of Massachusetts: 15 percent.

Condoleezza Rice, of everywhere: 8 percent.

Fred Thompson, of TV land: 4 percent.

Ron Paul, of Texas and libertarian land: 2 percent.

Rudy Giuliani, of New York: 2 percent

Charlie Crist, of Florida’s governor’s office: 2 percent

Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut: 2 percent

One percenters: Powell, North Carolina’s Edwards, Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, Newt Gingrich, the mind and mouth of Georgia, and New Mexico’s Gov Richardson, who’s endorsed Obama, but, hey, he used to like the Clintons too and he switched. Maybe he’d go for his next door neighbor from Arizona.

The findings are based on a survey of 453 Republicans conducted March 24-27, with a possible margin of error of plus or minus six percentage points. Which means, statistically, that Powell, Edwards, Gingrich and Richardson have about as much apparent public support as Rice.

--Mark Silva

Mark Silva writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune’s Washington Bureau.