Veepstakes: A pro-choice running mate?
Posted: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:07 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Conservatives spent much of yesterday warning McCain (not so quietly) against picking either Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman. The Washington Times: "Republican Party officials in several states are in a frenzy over how to persuade Sen. John McCain not to invite pro-choice Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman to be the Arizona senator's running mate. One of the state GOP officials said he talked with two ‘high-level’ Mr. McCain campaign officials who said that ‘Lieberman is a very real possibility.’”
But others in the McCain camp seemed to shoot down the prospect. The New York Times: “‘I think there’s such sufficient understanding at the most senior levels of this campaign of the importance of the pro-family constituency that I’m very comfortable with how the selection process is proceeding,’ one Republican strategist close to the campaign said. ‘I think social conservatives will be fine.’”
More: "Such a formulation would be unlikely to satisfy Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk show host and longtime McCain nemesis, who on Tuesday sounded a siren for his listeners. ‘If he picks a pro-choice running mate, it’s not going to be pretty,’ Mr. Limbaugh warned, adding that Mr. McCain would have ‘effectively destroyed the Republican Party and pushed the conservative movement into the bleachers.’”
“Republicans said Mr. Romney remained a contender, although the two were bitter rivals in the primary campaign and do not have strong chemistry. In addition, Mr. Romney, a Mormon, could be a difficult sell to Christian conservatives. A person associated with Mr. Romney said Tuesday that he had detected no strong interest from the McCain campaign in recent weeks. Republicans said Mr. Pawlenty, an evangelical Christian, was also a strong possibility. His main drawback is that he has little name recognition outside of Minnesota."
Does it sound like Biden here? The Chicago Tribune: "Obama said he was looking for a running mate who is independent and has 'integrity' and got into politics 'for the right reasons.' 'I want somebody who is mad right now that people are losing their jobs and is mad right now that people are seeing their incomes decline,' Obama said. 'That's the kind of person that I want, somebody who in their gut knows … that we have to grow this country from the bottom up.'"
The New York Times profiles Kathleen Sebelius.