Huckabee or Jindal: Googling McCain's VP

"You know, basically it's a Google," the Republican candidate told a fund-raising luncheon this week when asked how the running-mate selection process was going. "What you can find out now on the Internet--it's remarkable."

McCain was joking, of course, but in the light of his age issue and as a veteran of the 2000 campaign in which Dick Cheney chose himself, he knows the Republican VP candidate is no laughing matter.

After auditions of Mitt Romney and Governors Charlie Charlie Crist of Florida and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana at a Memorial Day barbecue, rumors are running toward Mike Huckabee, who caught fire with some conservatives during the primaries but put off others with his Second Commandment populism.

But, prodded by Rush Limbaugh, true believers are salivating over the 37-year-old Louisiana governor.

"Bobby Jindal is a great American," Grover Norquist burbles. "He is great on guns, great on taxes, a Roman Catholic, a Southerner and an Indian-American. Bobby Jindal would be great for the GOP and perfect for McCain."

The 71-year-old McCain's choice of Jindal would inevitably invite comparisons with the selection in 1988 by George H. W. Bush of Dan Quayle, then 41, who turned out to be an embarrassing VP who couldn't spell "potato."

But Jindal is a former Rhodes scholar who went on to work for McKinsey advising Fortune 500 companies. He is reliably pro-life, voted in Congress to make the Patriot Act permanent and advocates teaching "intelligent design" in public schools.

In 1988, McCain opined about Quayle, "I can't believe a guy that handsome wouldn't have some impact." Soon now, we'll know what kind of guy McCain thinks would have impact on his chances for the White House.