Q&A Friday #71: Who Do You Think Would Be On The GOP Short List For VP?

by John Hawkins | August 10, 2007 5:55 am

Question: “Who do you believe would be on the “short list” for both parties as VP candidates?” — RtWingNtCase

Answer: There are a lot of different possibilities.

Amongst the current field, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Duncan Hunter (whom I consulted for), and Mike Huckabee would probably get consideration.

Also, Newt and even Condi could get a look.

Some of the governors who didn’t get in could be considered, like Tim Pawlenty from Minnesota, Mark Sanford from South Carolina, Haley Barbour from Missouri, or Rick Perry from Texas. Bill Owens, the former governor of Colorado might get checked out, too.

If you want to get into real dark horse candidates, some candidates might be…

Mel Martinez (The GOP’s most prominent Hispanic pol) and Jeb Bush (very popular in Florida) could catch someone’s eye.

Liddy Dole would be an experienced female veep who would come across well to Americans.

If the candidate wanted to do the bipartisan “dream ticket” thing, he could take a chance on Joe Lieberman. Along those same lines, maybe Colin Powell, who is a Republican, although a very squishy one, would get a look.

As to who would get the nod, it really depends on a lot of factors:

1) Is the potential veep popular enough to carry an important state?

2) Could the potential veep reach out to a key constituency.

3) Is the potential veep strong in an area where the nominee is weak or does the VP add balance to the ticket (For example, if Rudy or Mitt got the nomination, they’d probably want an extremely conservative veep. If Fred were to get the nod, he’d probably want someone from outside the South as his #2. Someone like Mitt, who doesn’t have a lot of experience with foreign policy, might see someone like Duncan Hunter, who has lots of military and foreign policy experience, as a nice addition to the ticket).

4) Can the veep simply add a lot to the ticket? If the nomination battle turned into a very tightly contested, two man slugfest, the winner might chose the loser since he was supported by a big chunk of the party.

5) Of course, personal considerations play into it as well. For example, Gerald Ford blew his chance to be Ronald Reagan’s veep in 1980, when he did a TV interview, and essentially said he would be open to a co-presidency with Reagan — which really aggravated the Gipper.

So, long story short, there are a lot of different possibilities at this point and it’s hard to say exactly how it’ll play out.

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