DENVER — John McCain is planning to roll out his vice presidential nominee in three battleground states this weekend, with large-scale rallies planned for Ohio, Pennsylvania and Missouri, according to aides and advisers.
The GOP nominee-in-waiting will move to immediately change the campaign conversation from Barack Obama’s football stadium acceptance speech Thursday to the new Republican ticket, to be revealed at a noontime Friday rally in a Dayton, Ohio, basketball arena. McCain and his running mate will then travel by bus to Pennsylvania, where they’ll hold an outdoor event at a minor league baseball stadium in Washington County, just southwest of Pittsburgh. On Sunday, the duo will head to suburban St. Louis for another event to be held at a minor league baseball stadium, this one in O’Fallon, Mo.
The Missouri rally is being billed to local Republicans as something of a unity rally, since it will feature McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee — the GOP presidential finalists who effectively divided the vote three ways in the Show Me State’s Super Tuesday primary. A McCain aide warned not to read too much into McCain’s planned guests, however.
The campaign’s leadership has imposed a strict rule on staffers to not discuss the process and have further guarded the selection by parceling out very little information.
The decision, though, has been all but made, according to one top adviser.
“If he hasn’t, he’s very darn close,” said this source.
Speculation is increasingly centered on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, although Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman remains an option and remains in the final mix.
The Democrat-turned-independent would help McCain underline his message of how he’s a different type of Republican, but the blowback from the party’s conservative base for picking a supporter of abortion rights is likely to render Lieberman an untenable choice.
As one veteran Republican who has close ties to many of the players involved put it: “After all the talk this week about the Clintons, can you imagine how happy Democrats would be about a Republican revolt in St. Paul about John McCain’s choice for VP?”
So McCain seems to be applying the Woody Hayes axiom of football to politics: Two of the three things that can happen when you put the ball in the air are negative (an incompletion or an interception).
Instead, he’s likely to make the vice presidential equivalent of a handoff up the middle.
Or, in the words of a top adviser, “a solid, safe pick.”
I had a dream that Bill Clinton really wanted to stick it to Obama and offered to be McCain's VP. Now that would make a great movie.
Anyway, I smell a Romney selection. Of course, I did predict a McCain/Romney ticket way back in November of 2007 and was laughed at. Just as I predicted two weeks ago that McCain would be pulling ahead in polls (in two weeks time). And, he is.
Assuming politics as usual for the remainder of the campaign, McCain wins by 3-5 points in the GE. If a major scandal is unveiled which directly implicates Obama, look for the margin to be 6-12. It may not be an electoral landslide due to certain states that tip more heavily Rep.
Russia will continue to cause problems in the world and this will only aid McCain's climb. The Russians prefer conservative presidents because they are more "predictable", in simplistic terms.
"What you make of yourself from now on is your choice, son. This is a chance to take a serious look at your future. Take advantage of it." -Admiral Jack McCain
After the attack Romney launched on Obama today, there is no doubt that he should be McCain's VP. Tim Pawlenty may be a nice guy, but he pales in comparison and will do nothing for the ticket.
Romney and McCain Attack Each Other Over Ads Email Share
December 28, 2007 9:26 PM
Rick Levinson -->
ABC News' Matt Stuart reports: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney fired heated words back at Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in response to an ad McCain began airing in New Hampshire, which itself was a response to an ad attacking McCain.
“It's an attack ad. It attacks me personally. It's nasty. It's mean spirited. Frankly, it tells you more about Sen. McCain than it does about me that he would run an ad like that,” Romney said while speaking with reporters somewhere between Missouri Valley, Iowa and Council Bluffs. The campaign held an impromptu meeting on the bus between events.
Romney continued, arguing that McCain's ad had "no place in this process." "I must admit that the McCain ad was, well it was reminiscent of what he did against George W. Bush in 2000 which is, you recall, he accused President Bush of twisting the truth like Bill Clinton and again this is the kind of nasty, personal attack which really doesn’t have a place in this process."
Hearing of Romney’s statement, McCain claimed that Romney started the attacks and commented, “Try to relax, Mitt.”
The McCain ad, which began airing in New Hampshire Friday, uses excerpts from endorsements in the New Hampshire Union Leader and Concord Monitor calling Romney a “phony” and suggests he doesn’t tell the truth.
Romney continues to insist that his ads are "contrasts," while McCain's is an "attack ad."
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