Mitt Romney Running Mate Speculation Thread

put your wagers on the table here

Assuming he doesn't go with a tree from Michigan--which would automatically make him the charismatic half of the ticket--I'll bypass the obvious choice (which probably will happen) and say Christie.

Romney/Chamblis '12

In 2010 and 2011 I said Marco Rubio; now I'm sure I'm wrong.

Does anyone still think Mitch Daniels is a legitimate possibility? I'd hate to think so.

Nikki Haley but I wish Romney would hike the Appalachian Trail instead if you know what I mean

isn't there a rule against having two such white people on the same ticket?

Romney/Miers '12

new "CW" is he can't afford to pick someone less boring than he is!

guessing Jindal

intrade:

Marco Rubio to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
22.2%
Chris Christie to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
10.7%
Bob McDonnell to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
7.9%
Paul Ryan to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
6.0%
Rob Portman to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
13.0%
Mitch Daniels to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
3.8%
John Thune to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
3.0%
Bobby Jindal to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
2.5%
Rand Paul to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
2.0%
Rick Santorum to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
2.8%
Tim Pawlenty to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
2.4%
Ron Paul to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
2.4%
Jeb Bush to be Republican VP nominee in 2012
1.9%

girl power!

I don't buy christie at all, dude is poison

Jeb Bush at 1.9% has to be overrated. Why would he go anywhere near this election?

is Portman actually a reasonable person as portrayed by Wikipedia or does he have a "wait that dude totally ate a baby" moment

is Nikki Haley not on that list because she's pretty much flat out said she won't take it?

i'm still thinking it'll be Rubio

er she's 1.5%

I didn't include all the scragglers

sexist

lol

I find it amusing that Gingrich isn't on that Intrade list--which is completely accurate, but also kind of insulting, that he doesn't even get the fake token-support that Ron Paul does.

eh ron paul is always a little irrationally priced on intrade because of ron paul people

to me this comes down to whether mitt is thinking about this like he's a boss looking for 'the best new employee' for his political campaign firm or if he's thinking about this as a consulting decision and dehumanizing the vp completely...if it's #2 he'll prob go w/ rubio

how much more can you dehumanize the veep I wonder

i have no insight into this at all. rubio seems like an obvious non-pick but i haven't got any better ideas.

why don't you send Romney an email?

i guess it needs to be someone superficially exciting to the press and more 'substantively' exciting to the base. so yeah rubio i guess.

xp lol

I'm looking at that list and thinking "no chance in hell" for pretty much all of them

funny the logic of this seems to push toward another "shake things up!!!" kind of pick.

Romney/Arpaio '12

^^ finally, a ticket we can get behind

the prob is he still hasn't won over the base but any pick that will is gonna alienate a lot of people. if he wanted to 'shake things up' and stay on msg he could pick some CEO w/ no political trail maybe. meg whitman woulda been an okay choice if she had won california.

girl power!

Is Jan Brewer a possibility at all?

nooo way

I guess if Romney's interested in frightening the few "Latinos" who'll consider him.

Yeah, I guess that goes along with the first sentence in your last post, iatee.

I hate Paul Ryan so much. Even if his politics weren't reprehensible, he's just completely smarmy.

Romney/Duffy '12

idk, my leaning toward Rubio mostly comes from the math of how many Latino votes Romney will need to even have a chance and even though he's never going to convert those kind of numbers, i can still see them going with Rubio to at least keep up an appearance

that kind of calculation betrays a lack of understanding of the (lack of) solidarity of the USA Latino community...which means it's likely just how the Romney camp is thinking

I thought Rubio was already deemned LINO

Has anyone any evidence that Rubio's appeal to Hispanics extends beyond Cuban-Americans?

can we just put the kibosh on the whole "*INO" thing now

the prob is he still hasn't won over the base but any pick that will is gonna alienate a lot of people.

this is the beauty of the situation

I think Santorum might have picked Jindal, but I think Romney'll want somebody more Romney-ish - I assume that the party will have figured out that the "match an evidently sane candidate with a totally batshit veep" strategy was a non-starter. McDonnell seems the savviest pick: he's Catholic, southern, ex-military, vocal Romney supporter

right, Alfred, that's my point

Romney/Maturo Jr '12

xpost

yes, please. I figured by using it in the stupidest situations we can get it out of the running

Hologram Tupac is the obvious answer

that kind of calculation betrays a lack of understanding of the (lack of) solidarity of the USA Latino community...which means it's likely just how the Romney camp is thinking

exactly! i don't think they'll do it because it IS the smart thing to do, they'll do it because they THINK its the smart thing to do.

if this was a poll I'd vote Paul Ryan. he plays to the economy theme and has social con bona-fides over Christie who's squishy on guns and gays

can we not use the adjective "squishy" to describe Christie on anything

"our rights come from nature and god, not from government!" <---only line to get a really big reaction from the audience so far

Which of course is why people in China and Iran are exactly as free as people in the United States and Sweden!

RYAN/ROMNEY '12
I've been known to make a mistake

he is for real a better pick though; if mitt's going to win it's surely in stoking up the people who want an abrasive-contrarian-asshole pick

the hilarity continues

he's gonna get like 4 undecided voters w this pick

CNN had Gingrich on after the speech, and they immediately hauled out the "right-wing social engineering" clip. He wriggled out of it, but that's something that'll keep turning up (guaranteed to be in a Democratic ad or two).

he isn't even going to win Wisconsin

I'd forgotten--Obama made exactly the same mistake introducing Biden four years ago. Interesting psychology there.

biden was a safe pick tho

oh I thought you meant doing this friday night / saturday morning, sorry, early

also Biden is fuckin hilarious

CNN's so funny sometimes: their crawl machine at the bottom still says "Three sources tell CNN that Romney to name Ryan as VP choice."

this may get Mitt a weekend of positive press -- all of which will be out-of-it pundits braying about how choosing Ryan was "bold" and "transformative" and how "brave" Ryan's give-the-rich-more-tax-cuts-paid-for-by-starving-Granny budget proposals are, but beggars can't be choosers -- but when the smoke clears he won't get a single swing vote. and it won't even work so well for getting the Teabags to the voting booth, b/c they're already hopped up on Obama-hate.

all the Dems gotta do in Florida is yell SOCIAL SECURITY loud enough

this is like Bush the Elder picking Quayle imho

"let's get a young guy, make you look less stuffy!"

granted Quayle didn't have party-base bonafides the way Ryan does

Have no idea what Ryan thinks he gains from this. He's giving up considerable power in the House to serve as veep?

actually Quayle did, Shakey! He was reliably to the right of Reagan for most of the eighties.

I was young, I just don't remember if Quayle was a similar firebrand. he did say stupid things in public, which Ryan also seems prone to. Looking forward to his "that Burger King over there is hiring" moment

Quayle was certainly dumb enough to appeal to 1988 Tea Party types.

but at least Paul Ryan knows how to spell "potato" correctly.

Have no idea what Ryan thinks he gains from this. He's giving up considerable power in the House to serve as veep?

But does he have to? Won't he still run for his House seat too?

Sure, and I guess when they both lose the race Ryan has more "prestige."

Lieberman chose to run for Senate even when he was Gore's running mate ... so yeah, Ryan doesn't have to decline to run for his House seat.

One of the main reasons Bush 41 settled on Quayle was the latter opposing most of Reagan's late term dealing with Gorby.

how was Palin in the Biden-Palin debate in '08? are these running-mate debates a big deal? i don't recall hearing about them over here much last time around.

repost dirty gif of Biden and Palin during debate plz

http://lifesteez.com/miscimg/gotthatbitch.gif

By the time of that debate, the Palin bar of expectations had been set so low that all she had to do was not be completely embarrassing for it to count as a triumph. I think the general consensus was that it didn't really help or hurt either of them.

so who will Obama pick as veep?

biden was really good in the debate, he said some plainly heartfelt things about his family which made palin's bear mama (or whatever it was ...) rhetoric look patently empty. the story was just 'palin fails to embarrass self', though

(xpost) Yes--although she still managed to fall short of those abysmally lowered expectations. I feel like I should apologize in advance for knowing this, but Biden was the "winner" in all the post-debate polls by about a 2-1 margin. On the other hand, she did get off one immortal line: "Mind if I call you Joe?"

It'd be fun to use that line in real life with some of you. "Mind if I call you Thomp?" "Mind if I call you Schlump?" "Mind if I call you A Regina Spektor Is Haunting Europe?"

My secret hope for this is that educating the public about Ayn Rand will turn into her becoming this election's Jeremiah Wright. WHY WON'T RYAN DENOUNCE HIS EXTREMIST IDEOLOGICAL MENTOR?

VP debates were handily Biden's but yeah, the CW was that Palin needed to not come out in clown makeup reciting nursery rhymes backwards, so it was a "win." Biden did have that alternately cringe-worthy/heartfelt speech about his roots. (Jon Stewart: "Oh yeah, Sarah Palin? You're from one shithole town? Joe Biden's from four."

Back to back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=638sSV5WByQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4QCcwJjk54

Maybe until you're actually elected it's hard to get your head around the idea that the next president might be you.

And, if you're running for President, you're constantly hearing people introduce someone on stage (you) as "the next President of the United States!" Could imagine that just getting lodged in your head.

A simple explanation that makes perfect sense. Don't think it's a coincidence, though.

My secret hope for this is that educating the public about Ayn Rand will turn into her becoming this election's Jeremiah Wright. WHY WON'T RYAN DENOUNCE HIS EXTREMIST IDEOLOGICAL MENTOR?

considering that ryan is one of the new breed of "professional catholic" politicians his devotion to a notorious atheist is ripe for picking apart

yeah if ayn rand does come up its gonna be in the context of IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BEING RUN BY ATHEISTS

Frum's thing is pretty interesting--#4 is LBJ's inside-pissing-out theory:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/11/paul-ryan.html

who SHOULD have mitt picked?

lol frum was damn near apopleptic about this pick last night - https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/234147333850406912

Max Twain‏@MaxTwain

@davidfrum We get it, you are petrified to defend conservatism. That's why you are so comfortable among the Deweys/Fords/Doles/Bushes #tcot

#3 on that frum list was my first thought when i saw the pick -- the most obvious-seeming answer to the who is this for question, right? it's not really for "the base" cuz the base hates obama so much that romney shouldn't have to worry about them; it's not really for "swing voters" because this isn't the guy to get them; but the kochs of the country, the ultrariches with their heads stuffed full of rand, love this guy (the natl review had a hilarious piece where they said ryan was just the kind of brilliant analytical "uber-competent thinker" romney would have hired at bain; he's a ceo's idea of a genius) and w romney's numbers slipping i thought maybe he was hoping for a huge cash injection from a newly enthusiastic plutocracy. who knows tho right.

anagram fun - "Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan" -> "Immoral Ayn Rand-type nut"

awesome!

the most obvious-seeming answer to the who is this for question, right?

Duh, it's for the good of the country, and, by extension, the good of the whole world.

http://swampland.time.com/2013/11/02/the-hunt-for-pufferfish/

Based on their junk-food-saturated vetting diet, they called their undertaking Project Goldfish (after the crackers)—ultimately giving each of the VP finalists an aquatic code name. Myers’ plan was to have Project Goldfish completed by Memorial Day. In April she presented Romney with a list of two dozen names, which he whittled down to 11: Kelly Ayotte, John Cornyn, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Bill Frist, Mike Huckabee, Bob McDonnell, Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan.

Within a month, the vetters had assembled preliminary research books on the 11, which Romney perused and then rendered his short list: Christie (Pufferfish), Pawlenty (Lakefish), Portman (Filet o Fish), Rubio (Pescado) and Ryan (Fishconsin).

huck

http://datxvsvmsae0p.cloudfront.net/sw56586001.jpg

should've selected gov. pufferfish.