Romney's Running Mate

Mitt Romney has been the unofficial Republican candidate for President, arguing for Obama’s removal and for people to vote for him, for a while now. However, one thing that has yet to be answered is who his running mate, the next Vice President if he wins, will be.

The Vice President is both an important and mocked role in US politics. He acts as President of the Senate, gets full Secret Service protection and must fit all the requirements for President should anything happen to POTUS (think LBJ after JFK’s assassination). However, he is also recognised as being a bit powerless, picked for diplomatic reasons, either to placate a section of the party (LBJ was picked to win Southern Democrat votes, Joe Biden was similar and his main contributions have been to swear when mics are on and force Obama’s hand on gay marriage) or to control a power hungry and ambitious rising star (Al Gore was often seen as the next President whilst serving under Clinton and John Hoynes in the West Wing universe is VP in Bartlett’s first term whilst looking to succeed him).

The VP selection is important though and the selection must be made to win votes or to support a candidate in areas where they are perceived as weak. One need only look to 2008 and the ridiculous decision to appoint Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate and the effect it had on their campaign (McCain polled better going alone than with running with Palin. That’s when you know it’s a bad pick!).

And so we come to Romney and his expected announcement today. Whilst it was meant to be secret until a speech on a decommissioned warship, the name leaked to the media is Paul Ryan, currently a Republican congressman for the state of Wisconsin (fun fact, Wisconsin produces more milk than any other state). I’ll come on to him in a minute but let’s look at qualities Romney needs in a running mate and who he could have picked.

Romney is old (65) and so needs a younger person. Anyone over 55 or even 50 would not be considered. Romney is a former governor and so needs someone with ‘DC experience’, a Congressman or Senator. Whilst a good thing, this makes the selection hard because of lobbyists and interest groups and the poring over of vote records on guns, abortion, taxes etc etc that would ensue. Romney needs a conservative, in particular a fiscal conservative, to win over the Tea Party remnant. Romney somehow needs to win over minorities, notably Hispanics and Blacks, who formed the base of Obama’s 2008 win. Romney is wooden at the podium and could do with a good orator to go after Obama. Finally Romney is a Mormon and so needs someone from a less controversial faith background to win doubters within the evangelical voting block

As for candidates, I’ve mentioned before that I wanted Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey, to run but he didn’t. Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana would also have been a great candidate. The reality is that they’re both holding out for potential Presidential runs in 2016 against a fresh Democrat candidate and, with their eyes on that, weren’t looking to be on the ballot/VP to Romney. Other names were mentioned but the person who I was backing is Marco Rubio, an up and coming Roman Catholic Senator from Florida who previously served in the State House of Representatives. He appears to fit the mould well – a young man (41) from a potential swing state (Florida and its 27 electoral college votes are definitely up for grabs so expect lots of Space comments in the campaign and references to Mars landers and going to the Moon), he is a good public speaker, is the son of Cuban immigrants with a proven conservative voting record and ‘DC experience’ that isn’t long enough to allow him to be labelled a Washington insider. Points against him are that he lied about his parents emigration (they left under Batista, not Castro) and his attachment to the Tea Party-ers being too strong. Whilst I may not agree with his politics, Rubio seemed to be the right choice for me.

However, Romney seems to have gone with Paul Ryan. So does he fit the criteria? Well he’s young (42), he has served in DC since 1999 and has a proven track record in conservative voting. Controversially he voted for TARP which led to the Tea Party movement but he has also proposed several tough fiscal measures (the most recent of which slashes Medicaid – health insurance support for the poor – and gives more money to the military) and he heads up the House Budget Committee. Indeed his budget plans have proved so controversial that US leaders of the Roman Catholic Church (of which he is a member) have asked him to change his stance. Ryan’s speeches are good and it was his introduction for Romney to a crowd in Wisconsin back in April that first got people talking about him as potential VP material

So I can certainly understand why Romney would have gone for him considering the requirements above. However, I would still question why he is going for a young white conservative from a solid Democratic state with only 10 electoral college votes when he could have gone for a young Hispanic conservative from a swing state with 27 votes. Time will show us whether Romney has made the right decision