More Running Mate Talk

Please, Senators Obama and McCain.

Make your running mate selections soon. I can't take much more of this guessing game.

• Dan Schnur of the New York Times ponders this question: "Who would be the worse selection? Mitt Romney or Tim Kaine?"
  
  That's a tough one.
  
  Romney and Kaine "seem to have emerged as among the most likely vice presidential choices for their party’s nominees," Schnur writes. "But both men exacerbate the greatest weaknesses of Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama ... rather than addressing them."
  
  Of course, none of the people who have been mentioned as possible running mates would be in that position if not for the support of others.
• Whatever one may think of Romney, there are many people who are urging John McCain to pick him.
  
  Like Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics' HorseRaceBlog, who says McCain should waste no time in offering the spot to Romney.
  
  Cost has four reasons for McCain to pick Romney:
  
  
  1. Romney will energize conservatives. (Seems to me I've heard that one about a lot of prospects.)
  2. Romney will bring Michigan. (Well, that would be a big prize — if Romney can really deliver it.)
  3. Romney will bring economic credibility. (That, too, is important. Can Romney really deliver that one as well? And, if he can, if that's what Republicans want, why isn't he the presumptive presidential nominee, since ...)
  4. Romney can raise extra cash. (And against an opponent with the warchest Obama has at his fingertips, raising extra cash is an attractive asset, not merely a "delightful dividend.")
  
  
• And, on the Democratic side, there are many people who think Barack Obama should make a similar gesture to a former rival and put Hillary Clinton on his ticket.
  
  Like Lanny Davis, who writes, in the Wall Street Journal, that picking Clinton would be in Obama's best interest "[n]ot just to enhance his chances of winning — but, more important, to help him be a more effective president."
  
  It's questionable, of course, just how objective Davis is. He was President Clinton's legal counsel, and he was an active supporter of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. And he acknowledges a 39-year friendship with the former First Couple.
  
  Hardly an impartial observer.
  
  I'll give him credit for taking on the primary objections that have been raised to the notion of putting Hillary on the ticket:
  
  
  1. Sen. Clinton is polarizing and will rev up the Republican base.
     
     "In fact, the data proves the reverse is true," writes Davis. "Sen. Clinton has little or no effect on Republican preferences in a race against Sen. McCain — and she helps Sen. Obama significantly among Democrats."
  2. Choosing Sen. Clinton would be counter to the Obama message of "new politics" and change.
     
     "Barack Obama selecting her as the first female vice president would reinforce his change message," Davis says, "not detract from it."
  3. She would not be a team player, and her husband would be a distraction or worse in an Obama White House.
     
     "Hillary Clinton is the ultimate team player," Davis writes.
     
     Well, I'm not so sure about all that. But, as positive press goes, it doesn't get much more positive than Davis' article.
  
  
• The articles about Hillary's chances haven't been all favorable. Jennifer Parker and Sunlen Miller report, for ABC News, that Hillary's supporters are miffed because Obama, apparently, "may choose another woman" to be his running mate.
  
  Sounds like the kind of argument Obama would be wise to avoid.