Changing of the GOP Guard

With Day One wiped out by natural disaster, the Republican Convention will be visited tonight by man-made political pestilences named George W. Bush, bearing the lowest approval ratings in history, and Joe Lieberman, despised by both liberal Democrats who voted him out of their party and conservative Republicans who revolted to stop John McCain from choosing him as a running mate.

Disarray over the VP choice may signal a changing of the political guard, much as the Democrats' Eagleton fiasco did in 1972. Before that, the party had won six out of nine presidential elections dating back to FDR. From then on, Republicans prevailed in the following six of nine.

In a way, it's sad that Lieberman didn't get the nod to go down in history as the first Jewish candidate for vice president to experience bipartisan defeat, but with the distinct possibility that Sarah Palin will be scandaled into withdrawing, McCain may yet be able to revert to his suicidal choice, although factional in-fighting is more likely to lead to a talking-points cyborg like Tim Pawlenty.

One silver lining: With Bush scheduled to speak by satellite, delegates will be spared the effort of having to feign delirous joy as he makes a grand entrance to take the podium.

McCain's Mixed Bag of VPs

As Democrats put Obama/Clinton issues behind them, the Republican identity crisis comes front and center in John McCain's decision about a running mate.

Aside from Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who may actually turn out to be the choice, the longish short list is all over the identity-politics lot:

Mitt Romney, a super-rich Mormon the candidate clearly despises, and holder of the Olympic record for flip-flopping on social issues;

Joe Lieberman, a McCain personal favorite, with the slight handicap of having run for VP as a Democrat, to say nothing of being a pro-choice Orthodox Jew, the prospect of whose presence on the ticket unsettles even the strong stomach of Karl Rove;

Tom Ridge, a pro-choice former governor with an undistinguished record as the first Homeland Security head, whose current work is sitting on the boards of Home Depot and Hershey;

Two business executives (Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina) with no political experience whatsoever but whose gender might appeal to diehard Hillary Clinton dissidents;

And even Colin Powell, who would bring racial balance and a respected military career but whose most recent public service involved helping George W. Bush lie us into Iraq and is a septuagenarian only a few months younger than McCain.

After Bush-Cheney, it's understandably complicated to figure out what enlightened Republicanism should involve this year, a problem with which McCain himself apparently wrestled after being sandbagged by Rove in 2000 when he considered switching parties himself.

If some voters have a problem wrapping their minds around the idea of Obama in the Oval Office, they may be equally bewitched, bothered and bewildered by whoever McCain chooses to be an elderly heartbeat away.

Petraeus for VP?

Asked by Rick Warren to name "the three wisest people you would rely on heavily in an administration," John McCain led off with David Petraeus, which raises the question of why not have the general at his side as a running mate?

Since, in McCain's judgment, the Iraq war has been won, wouldn't Petraeus' wisdom be useful in a broader role? After presiding over victory in World War II, Dwight Eisenhower, with no previous political experience, went straight to the White House, so the vice-presidency for a newcomer would not be a radical departure.

Aside from that, Gen. Petraeus has been deeply involved in the politics of Iraq, sometimes to the dismay of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and just last week went to Beirut to meet with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora on the military-political situation there.

Since the US military has been drawn so deeply into politics by the Bush Administration, Petraeus as VP might be the logical next stop.

According to an editor of US News & World Report, Petraeus has already helped save the US economy with the success of the Surge allowing Iraq to pump 2.4 million barrels of petroleum a day and prevent "$200-a-barrel oil--or maybe twice that."

With all this success on America's foreign and domestic fronts, doesn't Petraeus qualify as a VP choice for McCain?

Will McCain Play the Gender Card?

With disaffected Clinton supporters still vowing to stay home or vote for him, John McCain must be tempted to give them another reason to come aboard by picking Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.

From a look at her political history, the 44-year-old "Northern Exposure" chief executive would bring more than token womanhood to the ticket. With approval ratings in the 80-90 percent range, Palin is seen, in the words of NPR, as "a moose-burger-eating, snow-mobile-riding maverick who's not afraid to take on fellow Republicans she disagrees with," including distancing herself from the now-indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.

At the same time, she is adored by the Religious Right as the mother of five, the eldest of whom joined the Army at 18 last year and the youngest a Down's Syndrome baby she refused to abort, and as a hunting, fishing lifetime member of the NRA.

With her beauty pageant looks and background in journalism, Palin would enliven the Republican campaign and bring them an activist on the key issue of energy, providing a tireless young partner for McCain's claims of change in Washington.

Unrequited Hillary Clinton supporters, still fighting for recognition at the Democratic convention, would face a bitter irony in Sarah Palin as a potential vice-president. In the light of McCain's age, a Republican victory this year could eventually make the first woman in the White House a president who would appoint Supreme Court Justices to overturn Roe v Wade and restore the era of back-alley abortions.

If McCain decides to play the gender card, he will be forcing Democrats to overcome their differences, to put up or shut up by making party unity a reality rather than a slogan.

Religious Right's VP Choices

If John McCain wants to protect his extreme flank, George Bush's favorite evangelist has a few suggestions.

In an interview, Southern Baptist spokesman Richard Land vetoes as a pro-choice "catastrophe" Tom Ridge and, reluctantly, Joe Lieberman, who he "would love to have" as Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State. (In 2002, they both evangelized for Iraq as a "just war.")

Who does Land like? "Governor (Sarah) Palin of Alaska...She just had her fifth child, a Downs Syndrome child...She's strongly pro-life. She's a virtual lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. She would ring so many bells."

Mitt Romney "would be an excellent choice" but "about 15 to 20 percent of the evangelical community would have a problem with his Mormonism."

Land's interfaith selection is Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor, "a conservative, observant Jew, a one hundred percent pro-life voting record," who defeated Cooter Jones of the "Dukes Of Hazzard" for the Richmond seat in 2002.

If McCain makes it, Rev. Land would look forward to a VP who might continue his weekly White House conference calls initiated by Karl Rove to make sure the Administration continues to be on guard against such threats as John Lennon's "Imagine," the "secular anthem" for a future of "clone plantations, child sacrifice, legalized polygamy and hard-core porn."

But no matter who turns out to be his running mate, McCain is sure to have Land's at least lukewarm support against Barack Obama who "has never met an abortion that he couldn't...live with."

The McCain VP Shell Game

Duping the Prince of Darkness is SOP for the GOP, as the Valerie Plame outing showed, but the McCain campaign is in "reprehensible" new territory by using him to distract attention from the Obama tour, Robert Novak is mournfully telling Fox News.

The VP shell game is definitely going on, as the Republican candidate goes to New Orleans today, suggesting Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as the choice, while other reports ooze out that Mitt Romney is fast becoming McCain's best friend.

"I'm appreciative every time I see Mitt on television on my behalf," McCain says. "He does a better job for me than he did for himself, as a matter of fact."

But at a private Republican meeting in New Hampshire yesterday, reports CNN's Dana Bash, McCain "dropped a serious hint about Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, telling them "out of the blue" they are "really going to like" Pawlenty.

Of them all, Pawlenty sounds the most plausible. A former Congressman, former Catholic turned Protestant, experienced but young (47), socially conservative with an impressive record of fiscal management, he helps McCain on age and the economy without bringing any of the baggage Jindal and Romney would be toting. And the last thing the Republican campaign needs is baggage.

In the process, they may have even unloaded Novak.

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.