By the time Sen. John McCain gets on NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" tonight, it's gonna look like it's way past the veteran senator's bedtime.
The show was, of course, taped this afternoon, a little bit late due to a very surprising event: air traffic congestion above and around Newark's airport. Imagine that! And on a Friday, too.
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But it's amazing what can happen when you have the Secret Service on your side: the Lincoln Tunnel was closed and McCain's motorcade sped through midtown Manhattan to the NBC studios.
(Oh well, he wasn't gonna win New York's voters over anyway.)
There, the Republican nominee-to-be was well-received, even when Conan begged the 71-year-old war vet and POW to give late-night comedians something other than his age to joke about.
There was a pause. And McCain fell over asleep.
The late-night host acknowledged his colleagues had been unable to find anything to make fun aboutBarack Obama. (One idea: How about those Prince Charles-like jug ears?)
"I say we're tired of this take on you," O'Brien complained. "We....
The other day here we noted that Republican nominee-to-be John McCainkeeps referring to the country of Czechoslovakia, which hasn't existed since 1993.
Now, Sam Nunn, a veteran retired senator and an oft-mentioned Democratic vice presidential running mate with Barack Obama, is doing the same thing.
His reference to the former country, which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was the third mention of Czechoslovakia during campaigning this week. A former chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee who could know better, Nunn was on the campaign trail in Indiana with Obama.
"We in this country are about to, under this government, under the Bush administration, deploy [a] missile defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia," Nunn said. For more details and a pretty funny video, check out our colleague Katie Fretland's item over on the Swamp.
Al Gore is challenging the next president of the United States, whomever that may be, to embrace an ambitious energy plan that would make the country’s electricity carbon-free within 10 years.
But while he outlined the steps he thinks the future president should take, he says he won’t be beside him as vice president, even if the Democrats win.
Gore dashed the hopes of those pining for an Obama-Gore dream team ticket in an interview with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News Thursday. The interview was conducted after Gore gave a speech on alternative energy in Washington.
“I have a personal term limit,” said Gore, who served for eight years as Bill Clinton’s vice president. “Only two terms as VP.”
Couric then wondered what Gore would do if Barack Obama came to him and begged, “Al, buddy, listen. I really, really, really need you."
Gore said the answer would still be no.
Speculation about a possible Obama-Gore ticket has bubbled in the blogosphere since last month, when Gore gave Obama a hearty endorsement after the primary struggle with Hillary Clinton had already been settled.
Gore, who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to draw the world’s attention to global warming, even used his website to solicit donations for Obama.
But when Couric suggested that Gore was playing coy in denying an interest in the VP spot, Gore shook his head and vowed, “This interview will not come back to haunt me. You can believe me.”
Sen. Barack Obama tapped two potential vice presidential nominees for a serious panel discussion about 21st century national security threats.
With a battery of cameras trained on the stage, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and former Sen. Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat, spoke about threats from loose nuclear weapons, cyberterrorism and bioterrorism. But amid all the sober talk Wednesday during the discussion at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., the campaign event at times resembled an audition for the No. 2 job.
Bayh continually referred to Obama as "Barack,'' suggesting an easy familiarity with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. Nunn predicted -- surprise! -- that Obama would win the November election. Both had plenty of nice things to say about Obama. As it turned out, their views on national security threats pretty much squared with his.
During the session, Nunn told Obama: "You have recognized better than anybody that is speaking out on this issue in America today the complexity of it and the importance of it. Securing nuclear weapons material is the No. 1 challenge we face."
Bayh at one point echoed an Obama campaign talking point –- that the Iraq War has proved an expensive distraction from more pressing national security priorities. "So much has been sacrificed on the altar of Iraq,'' Bayh said.
In a news conference afterward, both Nunn and Bayh downplayed any interest in the vice presidency. Bayh said questions about the vice presidency are "understandable'' and "good for my ego,'' though he added, "I love serving the people of Indiana.'' Nunn, for his part, said he thought the chances he would be offered the job are "pretty slim.'' "I never aspired to that office,'' he said.
He added, however, that if Obama wanted to talk to him about the appointment, he would not object.
Former Gov. Mitt Romney, who's increasingly visible on the campaign trail on behalf of the man who beat him for the Republican presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain, is about to forgive the $45 million he loaned himself for the primary struggles.
The legal move of filing papers with the Federal Election Commission re-declaring Romney's loans as contributions is imminent, according to a report by Michael Kranish on the Boston Globe's website, Boston.com. It would clear the legal deck for Romney to become a candidate again as, oh, say, the vice presidential Republican running mate of McCain.
Romney, whose personal fortune is estimated north of $190 million, is already marshalling on McCain's behalf his vast national donor network, which supplied another $65 million to Romney's unsuccessful campaign.
Although there appeared to be some personal frictions between the two men during primary debates, especially over campaign finance reform, which the senator has championed, McCain has more recently been openly appreciative of Romney's vigorous campaign grunt work in the months since the Arizonan clinched the GOP nomination.
"I'm appreciative every time I see Mitt on television on my behalf," McCain said earlier this week. "He does a better job for me than he did for himself, as a matter of fact."
Romney's successful career in business and resuscitating the troubled Salt Lake City Olympics plus his economic expertise and non-Washington executive experience as Massachusetts governor could help a McCain ticket.
The 61-year-old father of five boys has been married to Ann for 38 years. He's also already well-known and heavily vetted, lessening the chance of any embarrassing revelations. And Romney's family connections to Michigan, where he won the GOP primary, and his Mormon links in the West could help in both places on Nov. 4.
The Boston.com article quoted legal experts who said it appears that if McCain, like the Democratic candidate Barack Obama, reversed his position and opted out of federal campaign financing, Romney as a running mate could donate or loan the campaign an unlimited amount of his own fortune.
The Obama campaign this morning announced that it had collected $52 million during the month of June.
No presidential campaign -- not even Barack Obama's, which seems able to print its own money -- can afford all the publicity to get its message out and, more important, planted in the minds of sufficient voters to ensure victory.
So they use surrogates -- famous people, usually fellow politicians -- who are trotted out to meet with news-hungry media with four or five specific positive talking points to make about the candidate in a kind of created news scenario.
Sometimes the media representatives buy the points. Sometimes, like today, they don't. Here comes Democratic dignitaries like Sen. Evan Bayh and ex-Sen. Sam Nunn today to talk up the military and security credentials of the freshman senator from Illinois.
But the media wanted to talk about the vice presidential running mate possibilities for each man. So with reluctance they did.
"I have never aspired to that office," said Nunn, who served in the Senate from Georgia for 25 years. "It is always nice to have your name mentioned -- it is an honor -- but I have no expectation of being offered any office, and I am not in any way sitting on the edge of a chair ready to go back into government."
Nunn is a perennial VP prospect because of his strong national security credentials -- not all that common in his party -- and his Southernness. But at 69, he's only 23 months younger than McCain, which might detract from Democrats' ability to drive that issue.
Bayh, whose father, Birch, ran unsuccessfully for the White House 32 years ago, is younger at 52 and supported Hillary Clinton. So adding him might reach out to some of her supporters.
"I love serving the people of Indiana," Bayh said. "And I think any questions about the vice presidential thing are understandable, and it’s good for my ego. But I should probably let Sen. Obama and his campaign address those kind of questions."
Still, typically, he didn't want to totally quash such an opportunity. As CNN's Alexander Mooney points out, Bayh was then asked if he was taking his name off the VP list like Sen. Jim Webb and Gov. Ted Strickland have done.
Bayh's coy answer: "I've got a plane to catch."
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo credits: Diet Nagl / AFP-Getty Images (top); Office of Sen. Evan Bayh (bottom)
Harvey Weinstein has announced that he'll publish next summer a book called "What Am I Doing Here?" by a former Brooklyn delivery boy named Lawrence Harvey Ziegler.
Should be a great read on the subway. All right, we're messing with ya. Lawrence Ziegler was the street name of someone now known as Larry King, a former radio and now TV talk-show host who has interviewed pretty much everybody in the entire world, except a couple of taxi drivers in India and the Emperor of Japan.
Larry's going to reveal in his book what he thinks of every president since Lincoln. Just kidding. Since Nixon. And which ones he voted for.
Larry, a must-stop for presidential candidates, has left a mark on politics. Everyone who is anyone or wants to be in the world of politics comes through his studio because Larry's got no gotcha. He just wants to talk, actually listen. Lar's got no agenda. Just endless questions like regular people, only triter.
"I remind myself every morning," Larry has said. "Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening."
Larry is an incredible listener, leaning on that shiny desk, sleeves ...
Yet another prominent Democrat has taken himself out of the vice presidential derby.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a West Point grad set to accompany Barack Obama on a tour of Iraq and Afghanistan, called the VP slot a “position which I have no interest in.”
Not that he was actually in the running. Reed told the Associated Press he wasn't asked for any inside information that the Obama camp could use to vet him for the job.
Reed joins a growing list of prominent Democrats to say "No, thank you" to the No. 2 job even before it was offered. Maybe Clinton will be the only one left?
First, as The Ticket reported, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Clinton supporter, was an adamant no. Then, Virginia, it was Sen. Jim Webb, a former Republican.
Sen. Hillary Clinton celebrated a double-homecoming of sorts in Chicago today, visiting the city where she was born and paying homage to the American Federation of Teachers, which endorsed her unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination way back in October of last year.
Was it only 2007?
"I'm here to say thank you for the privilege of working with you in this presidential campaign," she told an enthusiastic crowd of more than 3,000 delegates at the union's convention on Chicago's waterfront Navy Pier.
"It was a remarkable journey, one that I would not have wanted to make without you, and I feel very privileged that you went with me as we crisscrossed America."
But more than just offering her appreciation, Clinton received a standing ovation as she played the role of campaign surrogate for the man who defeated her for the presidential nomination, presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, more specifically now of the city's South Side.
"I bear such a sense of debt to those who gave me so much," Clinton told the crowd, discussing the teachers she had while growing up in suburban Park Ridge. Our blogging colleague David Pearson has the rest of the story on the New York senator's campaign day in Illinois.
Barack Obama's presidential campaign hasn't said much about it, but this whole unity thing with the die-hard supporters of Hillary Clinton is proving more difficult to accomplish than envisioned.
She's urged her donors to support Obama and he's urged his supporters to help erase her campaign debt, except when he forgets.
But in between public engagements Obama is apparently reaching out to some recalcitrant Clinton backers with sympathetic phone calls during which he at least mentions that the New York senator he defeated is actually on his list of running mates.
This is one of those political claims that really can't be verified and may be aimed more at soothing ruffled feathers for now. In a few weeks it could disappear in a political puff, leaving no trace but having accomplished its calming summertime purpose.
A top former Clinton aide, Howard Wolfson, said on Fox News yesterday that he knew of no VP vetting process underway concerning his ex-boss.
But The Times' Peter Nicholas is reporting on this website tonight that Obama has told at least one unhappy Hillary supporter that his former opponent is indeed on his VP list.
Jill Iscol, a loyal Democratic donor and ardent Clinton backer, said Obama made that statement when she raised the Clinton VP issue in a recent phone call by saying Hillary was his best choice.
But, Iscol said, Obama added that he was also pondering a "complication" to that scenario.
You'll never guess what that complication is. Or, rather, who it is. Yup, Bill Clinton. Once a president, always a president, Iscol quoted Obama as saying, even when the word "former" comes before the word "president."
Many political observers and a lot of Clinton supporters think adding Hillary to the ticket would be the sure-fire best way to unify the party for the Nov. 4 general election. But, given the headstrong ex-president who's not really seemed all that publicly pleased about the Obama nomination, it could also be the sure-fire best way to divide an Obama administration.
The White House might seem a little crowded with one new president, one former president and one thought-she-oughta-be-president. Peter's detailed story on the unfolding confidential vice presidential discussions is here.
This is Part II in a continuing series of conversations between The Ticket and people involved in many aspects of modern American presidential politics, exploring the inner workings of this complex business.
This is the second item of two in a conversation with Ralph Reed, a Republican political strategist who's been involved in seven presidential campaigns, including as senior advisor to both campaigns of George W. Bush. He has not endorsed or donated to any presidential campaign yet, but is on the host committee for an August John McCain event in Atlanta.
Reed was the first executive director 15 years ago of the Christian Coalition and currently runs Century Strategies, an Atlanta public relations firm that advises major corporations.
He's also the author of a new book, a novel titled "Dark Horse," published by Simon & Schuster.
Part I of The Ticket's chat with Reed, which focused on the Republican side of the 2008 presidential race and the genesis of "Dark Horse," is available by clicking here.
In this item, Reed examines the Democratic side of the presidential race, the strengths and vulnerabilities of Barack Obama, and what kind of vice presidential running mate he needs to choose, and reveals a little bit more about his new political thriller.
TOTT: Many polls seem to indicate this is a strong Democratic year. What's your overview of the presidential race at this point?
The country wants to elect a Democrat as president. But it's not clear that it wants to elect Barack Obama.
The most recent Rasmussen survey shows the party breakdown if the election were held today as 41% Democrat, 31% Republican and 27% independent or unaffiliated. Obama has the wind at his back.
But McCain's reputation as a maverick and his unique ...
This is another in a continuing series of conversations between The Ticket and those people involved in many aspects of modern American presidential politics, which explore the inner workings of this complex business.
This item is the first of a two-part conversation with Ralph Reed, a Republican political strategist who's been involved in seven presidential campaigns, including as senior advisor to both campaigns of George W. Bush. He has not endorsed or donated to any presidential campaign yet, but is on the host committee for a John McCain event next month in Atlanta.
Reed was the first executive director 15 years ago of the Christian Coalition and currently runs Century Strategies, an Atlanta public relations firm that advises major corporations. He's also the author of a new book, a novel titled "Dark Horse," published by Simon & Schuster.
In this item, Reed examines the GOP side of the 2008 presidential race and talks about his surprise at the outcome of those primaries, the difficulties for the party in 2008, what McCain needs to avoid between now and Nov. 4, and the genesis of his book.
TOTT: What most surprised you about the outcome of the Republican primaries?
Reed: John McCain winning the nomination after essentially running out of money and laying off most of his staff in the summer of 2007 was amazing. His win in New Hampshire was a real Lazarus moment.
Mike Huckabee doing so well in Iowa and then winning a string of later primaries showed the continuing strength of the evangelical vote and underscored the importance of good candidate skills.
TOTT:McCain seems to have had some trouble gaining traction in this three-month general election head start. How do you explain this and do you see the latest reorganization in his camp having any effects, positive or negative?
Reed: Steve Schmidt, Mike DuHaime, Nicole Wallace and the rest of the people playing new and important roles at the McCain campaign are extremely capable. I worked with all of them in the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign and found them to be professional, talented and smart.
They'll do a good job, but it's a tough environment for Republicans this year. If they let the election be about style, Obama will be hard to beat. The McCain campaign needs to make the election about issues and substance. If they do, McCain will win.
TOTT: Given the historical reservations toward Sen. McCain in the evangelical community, do you think most of them will or are coming around to him, given the Democratic alternative? Or is your reading that they'll likely sit this one out on Nov. 4? What should McCain do about it?
Reed: I think they're highly unlikely to sit it out because the stakes are so high. In fact, this election...
Jim Webb, the Virginia senator and former Republican who packs his own heat most places, has withdrawn himself from consideration as Barack Obama's Democratic vice presidential running mate.
In a statement released moments ago, Webb said: "Last week I communicated to Senator Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain in the United States Senate, where I believe I am best equipped to serve the people of Virginia and this country.
"Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for Vice President."
Webb joins Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland as firmly removing himself from consideration as the Democratic No. 2. Strickland, you may recall, was and presumably still is a staunch supporter of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and helped deliver a lopsided Ohio primary win to her column this spring.
Strickland, whose Buckeye State will be crucial in determining the presidential winner Nov. 4, was equally unequivocal: "If drafted, I will not run; nominated, I will not accept; and if elected, I will not serve. So, I don’t know how more crystal clear I can be," he said in early June.
Webb had once been considered a possible candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination himself. His vice presidential potential stems from his proven political crossover appeal in another important state that has been trending Democratic in recent elections.
His statement today also said:
"A year and a half ago, the people of Virginia honored me with election to the U.S. Senate. I entered elective politics because of my commitment to strengthen America's national security posture, to promote economic fairness, and to increase government accountability.
"I have worked hard to deliver upon that commitment, and I am convinced that my efforts and talents toward those ends are best served in the Senate."
Webb also promised to campaign hard for the Democratic presidential ticket this fall.
For the complete text of Webb's statement, click on the Read More line below.
Yesterday, we noted the suggestion, by the Baltimore Sun's Paul West, that Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island would be a strong vice presidential pick for Sen. Barack Obama.
Today, perhaps coincidentally (and perhaps not), Reed -- whose national profile until now has been equal to the position of his home state as the smallest in the U.S. -- appeared on ABC's "This Week" as a surrogate for the Democrats' presumptive nominee.
As Barack Obama and John McCain take their sweet time settling on running-mate choices, one result is that the net cast in the inevitable guessing game gets wider and wider.
As The Times' Doyle McManus aptly put it in a recent overview on the plethora of vice-presidential prospects: "Never in modern memory have so many eminent people been mentioned for a job that has been compared -- unfavorably -- to a bucket of warm spit."
In the spirit of such speculation, veteran political journalist Paul West this weekend spotlighted two possibilities -- one for Obama, the other for McCain -- who definitely would be surprise picks.
For the Democrats, West offered up Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
In a definite understatement, West writes that Reed "isn't flashy, and he wouldn't upstage the star." But here's the core of the case he makes for the lawmaker with virtually no national profile:
"He's a Catholic with working-class roots (his father was a school janitor) and could enhance the ticket's appeal to those swing voters. He has expertise on issues at the center of the campaign debate: economics and the housing crisis.
"More important, he would offset Obama's lack of national security experience. Reed, 58, has a reputation as a serious thinker and is a respected voice on defense matters. He's a West Point graduate and Army Ranger with views that are right in line with Obama's. He voted against the 2002 Iraq war resolution and became an early critic of the way the war was fought while working to increase the size of the Army."
For the Republicans, West goes one better in the obscurity department -- dropping the little-known name of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. He notes:
"On a personal level, Huntsman and McCain both have adopted children from Asia. (Huntsman's are from China and India; McCain's is from Bangladesh.) Their moderate-conservative political views are in sync, and Huntsman has gone out of his way to praise McCain's stance on immigration reform."
West's complete piece, in which he also says that Bill Clinton's 1992 selection of Al Gore "is widely regarded by strategists in both parties as the best vice-presidential pick in at least 20 years," can be read on The Swamp blog.
Well, now he'll have a date for the inaugural ball -- though there are still a few hurdles left to getting an invitation. But Charlie Crist, Florida governor and a high entry on most lists of potential Republican veep contenders, is getting married.
Our cousins at The Swamp and the Central Florida Political Pulse have the details. The
bride-to-be and
Crist's flame of the past nine months is Carole Rome, 38, president of her family's century-old costume business, where some of the costumes are of the variety not likely to go over well with the Christian right (may we direct you to Devilicious and Marie Antoinette). Rome and ex-husband, Todd Rome, CEO of Blue Star Jets, have two children, ages 11 and 9. Crist, 51, was married briefly in his early 20s and has no children.
Crist says they're planning a fall wedding in St. Petersburg, where he lives, though that calendar could get awfully crowded if John McCain taps him. And if the Republicans believe Crist on the ticket can land them Florida, you can bet they'll be lobbying hard, though the last word was that Mitt Romney was topping the contender list.
Crist, you'll remember on this day set aside for barbecuing, was one of the trio that McCain invited to his Arizona spread on Memorial Day weekend, the launch of barbecue season, for a little R&R and presumed political talk. Romney and Bobby Jindal were the other two touted guests, all considered to be under consideration by McCain as possible running mates.
-- Scott Martelle
Photo: Carole Rome with Charlie Crist; credit: Associated Press
Joe Biden, the senator from Delaware and one of those vanquished by Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential race, remains a hot prospect in the vice presidential sweepstakes (something retired Gen. Wesley Clark probably can't claim).
The 65-year-old Biden, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would bring the deep-seated experience in international matters that Obama lacks. Although Delaware and its 3 electoral voters almost assuredly are in the Democratic column, Biden could help his party's ticket in two nearby and crucial states. He's well-known in some parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, by virtue of having been in the public eye for so long.
But perhaps his biggest asset is his Roman Catholic faith; in the view of many political handicappers, an Obama/Biden ticket could make inroads with a bloc of voters that has been resistant so far to the presumptive presidential nominee.
There is one slight complication. Biden is up for reelection this November -- he's heavily favored to snare a seventh six-year term -- and in some states it is illegal to be on the ballot for two offices at once.
In Delaware, the issue is simply not addressed, state Commissioner of Elections Elaine Manlove recently told an NBC affiliate in New Jersey. "It's not that our law says he can't (run for Senate and vice president at the same time). It's that it doesn't say it at all. There's nothing in Delaware law that says he can't."
The National Journal's Hotline noted earlier today that if state officials were asked to weigh in on the issue, Biden might have a built-in advantage. Delaware's attorney general happens to be Beau Biden, one of the senator's sons.
Within the last 50 years, three vice presidential nominees -- all Democrats -- have simultaneously sought reelection to Senate seats: Lyndon Johnson of Texas in 1960, fellow Texan Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in 2000.
Each won their Senate races, but only Johnson also was part of a winning national ticket (meaning he gave up his seat on Capitol Hill).
Barack Obama's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee are toying with a convention scheduling change that has been broached before in theory but never really seriously considered -- cutting the party's conclave in Denver short by one day to try to give Obama an extra day of post-nomination "bounce" in the crowded August calendar.
For the last several decades, since conventions became forums that merely rubber-stamp a presumptive nominee rather than dicker over who it should be, they have traditionally run from Monday through Thursday. Increasingly, both parties have struggled to offer anything of interest during the first couple of convention nights, and the television networks have responded by dramatically reducing live coverage of the affairs. The only truly significant event has become the nominee's acceptance speech, delivered during prime time on Thursday evening.
But this year, The Times' Doyle McManus has learned, Obama aides have floated the idea of ending the Denver convention on Wednesday, Aug. 27, instead of Thursday, Aug. 28, as is currently planned.
The reason is the calendar. This year -- unlike in the past, when there was some separation between the two gatherings -- the Republican convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul is scheduled to begin only four days later, on Monday, Sept. 1. The result, many Democrats believe, could be that Obama would not get the "bounce" in poll numbers that nominees usually can count on immediately after they have been officially anointed.
Quitting early, some Democrats argue, would give Obama an extra day to capitalize on the convention.
Adding to the Democrats' calculation is the growing speculation that McCain will announce his running mate in the brief intermission between the two conventions -- a good way to grab the spotlight back from the just-nominated Democrat.
"I'd expect McCain to name his choice on the Friday after the Democratic convention," said Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole's presidential bid in 1996. "It would be a good way to quash Obama's bounce."
The shortened-convention idea may have surfaced a bit late for it to happen this year. And one can anticipate that Denver officials and the city's business community will voice strong displeasure to it. Still, it sounds like a plan whose time eventually will come.
Lost in the brouhaha over remarks on CBS' "Face the Nation" by retired Gen. Wesley Clark that discounted John McCain's military record as a presidential qualification -- comments that still dominated much of the political discussion today -- was Joe Lieberman continuing to distance himself from the Democratic Party that nominated him for vice president eight years ago.
The senator from Connecticut has become one of McCain's most visible and vocal surrogates, and he played that role to the hilt Sunday in an appearance preceding Clark's. Lieberman -- who still caucuses with Senate Democrats, giving them their one-vote majority in the chamber -- pressed the case he's made before that Barack Obama exemplifies a party that has lost its way on foreign policy.
In a time when it doesn't take much to get mentioned as a vice presidential prospect, Lieberman has been bandied about as a potential McCain running mate. That buzz may grow louder short-term, as Lieberman accompanies McCain on a brief trip that began this evening to Colombia and Mexico.
Still, the Lieberman-as-veep scenario seems a stretch -- his liberal record on a raft of domestic issues, including abortion, would only intensify his friend's problems with the GOP base.
But he is a likely hire for a high-profile post in a McCain administration. And, based on a poll of voters in his homestate released today, it may be time for a career move on his part.
The survey by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found his job approval/disapproval rating basically a wash -- 45% gave him good marks, 43% gave him negative ones (the poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 2 percentage points).
Lieberman's standing is down from the ratings he received in a March poll, when 52% expressed approval and 35% disapproval.
The new figures also represent the first time his approval rating has dropped below 50% in 14 years of polling by the institute and, overall, his lowest score ever, said the survey's director, Douglas Schwartz.
Most dramatic is the breakdown in party attitudes toward a man who, if Al Gore had won the White House in 2000, presumably would have been next in line as a Democratic presidential nominee.
Among Connecticut Republicans, 70% give him favorable job ratings, 26% were unfavorable. Among the state's Democrats -- who bounced him as their Senate nominee in the 2006 primary, only to see him win re-election as an independent -- 62% rated him unfavorably, 18% favorably.
Well, this has got to have some effect on the national political prospects for Bobby Jindal, the rising star from Louisiana. (Can a star rise from the South?) Jindal, the Louisiana governor, on Monday vetoed, after promising not to, a pay raise that the state Legislature had voted for itself.
We're not exactly talking big bucks here. The current base pay for legislators is $16,800, and the Legislature wanted to more than double it to $37,500.
Why does this matter? Well, voters tend to hone in on "flip flops" -- note the baggage Mitt Romney carries (see the comments on this post). So the specifics of whether Jindal should or should not have vetoed the measure Monday is less important than the fact that he was tacking like, well, John Kerry out windsurfing.
Why Jindal's change? An uprising among voters, in the form of a recall petition. The Times-Picayune sums up the brief history: "Jindal was widely criticized for failing to stop the raise before it was passed and his initial refusal to veto it. He said he had promised lawmakers that he would not use his veto, but he also pledged during his gubernatorial campaign last year to prohibit an immediate legislative pay raise."
So to recap, first Jindal promised to stop the pay raise, then told legislators he wouldn't stop the pay raise, then -- looking at his own political mortality -- reversed direction again and stopped the pay raise. Jindal fell on the sword Monday, thanking "the people for their voice and their attention" -- that would be the recall petition -- and added: "The voters have demanded change. ... I made a mistake by staying out of it."
But you have to wonder what the odds table says now about Jindal's chances for the co-pilot seat on the Straight Talk Express.
So Mike Huckabee told the world the other day that if John McCain calls, he'd be happy to be his running mate, but that he doesn't expect McCain to call. Good thing Huckabee's not waiting by the phone. The folks over at Politico have a piece this morning saying the call could well go to Mitt Romney. But, of course, at this stage no one knows, as our colleague Doyle McManus points out with his own list of bandied-about names.
McCain doesn't need to rush. He doesn't need a running mate until the Republican National Convention, scheduled for Sept. 1-4, which comes after the Democratic National Convention, set for Aug. 25-28. Advantage goes to McCain, since he gets to see what the Democratic slate will look like before he makes his call. And yes, he can pick a running mate earlier to make himself look decisive and unconcerned about political ramifications (which ties into his Straight Talk theme) but, chances are, he'll keep his cards hidden until he has to play.
So why Romney? As Politico points out, he's gone through the media vetting process, has access to cash fountains through his business connections and fellow Mormons, and plays well in his birth state of Michigan, which could be crucial in picking the winner.
The downside? The chemistry between McCain and Romney isn't exactly "Let's spend the next eight years together, shall we?" It's more like: "Does he have to come to this meeting? Can't we just send him to a state funeral somewhere?"
The other top names on McCain's list, per Politico, are former Ohio congressman and White House budget director Rob Portman -- not exactly a household name -- and John Thune of South Dakota, who knocked minority leader Tom Daschle out of the Senate in 2004.
Now it's your turn. Who do you figure? And no, not Dick Cheney -- he's not in charge of the search committee. The comment section is open below.
