An Internet hub for moderates, centrists, and independents, with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, and right

« John McCain Digs An Ever Deeper Hole

Edwards’ love child and the hetero/homo double standard divide »

Will Portman or Kasich Be McCain’s Thursday Surprise?

Posted by MARK DANIELS in Politics.
Jul 24th, 2008 | Comments

John McCain’s abrupt decision to scrub events on Wednesday and Thursday and instead, fly to Columbus, has Taegan Goddard speculating that the presumptive GOP nominee is going to try upstaging Barack Obama’s Berlin speech to announce that an Ohioan will be his running mate. Goddard speculates that it could be Rob Portman or John Kasich.

If McCain is coming to Columbus to announce a Veep, it’s likelier that the person will be John Kasich. Portman is from the Cincinnati area and, believe me I know, having lived in his congressional district for seventeen years, viewed in something like heroic terms there. It’s unlikely that McCain would pass up the adulation with which a Portman vice presidential run would be greeted in Cincinnati. (I also once lived in the congressional district in which Kasich served, but not while he was in Congress.)

Both Kasich and Portman have been preparing for a gubernatorial run in 2010. I talked about that here last March.

Each candidate would bring a major asset to the McCain campaign: an infusion of campaign cash. Portman’s Cincy friends have played a major part in bankrolling Bush family campaigns, particularly Bush the Younger’s ‘00 and ‘04 runs. Kasich could undoubtedly attract Gingrich-related campaign monies and lots of rank-and-file conservatives’ contributions from his Fox News Network affiliation.

Politically, neither of these potential Veeps do much for McCain. I don’t even think that they help him appreciably in Ohio because neither of them are known well statewide, except among party activists. Kasich is undoubtedly slightly more well known by virtue of his regular appearances on Fox.

Gubernatorial ambitions may be the prime motivation for either potential candidate to team up with McCain at this point. One still must count the GOP candidate’s prospects of winning as dim, although better than one might have projected earlier in the year. Portman and Kasich stand to gain strong name recognition in Ohio even from a November loss.

On the stump, you can expect Portman to be the more polished of the two. But Kasich’s aw shucks appeal, combined with his grasp of budgets and taxes, have proven politically potent through the years. Both men can be fairly described as policy wonks.

It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, McCain has up his sleeve today.

[This has been crossposted at Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels.]

[UPDATE: See here.]

  • superdestroyer
    Does it really matter who Senator McCain nominates since he has zero chance of winning. I also find it funny that two Congressmen want to run as Republicans in a state that seems intent on voting every Republican out of office. I guess the question is whether they lose badly in 2008 or in 2010.
  • McCain doesn't need to actually name his veep today. He just has to get the media talking about the possibility of it, give a speech, and see if he can get the media to cut away to his speech to see if he will name the running mate. Then he doesn't do it, but he's succeeded in grabbing some of the attention away from Obama's Berlin moment.

    That veep nomination is the last card in the deck, and the fact that he can do it the day after Obama's acceptance speech is one of their best advantages going into the fall. Were he to name it today, it would be more than the scent of desperation. I would BE desperation.
  • MJDaniels53
    Jazz: Good thoughts.

    SD: Even if GOP prospects are as dim here as you suggest, a run for Veep, especially one in which the candidate gets high marks, could help and would certainly increase name recognition.

    At present, I think that McCain has a fifty-fifty chance of winning in Ohio. The state is so balanced politically and the Clinton campaign here brought those doubts about Obama, once below the surface, out in the open.

    Twenty-two of Ohio's 88 counties are in the Appalachian region in which I now live and I believe that these counties could literally swing either way. Northeast Ohio is apt to go for Obama in a big way, as will the Toledo area. Cincinnati and southwest Ohio will go to McCain. Metro Columbus, the largest urban/suburban complex in the state, is a swing region.

    As far as Ohio's 2010 elections go, Democrat Ted Strickland presently looks like shoo-in for re-election. If he successfully passes educational reform, including a new state plan for funding public schools, he will probably win with no less than 65% of the vote, no matter who the Republicans nominate. (Our public school funding formula has been ruled, by the state Supreme Court, unconstitutional on four different occasions.)

    But a Republican could well be elected to take over the scandal-plagued state Attorney General's office in November's special election. The GOP has picked a Mr. Clean and I think that they will back him to the max.

    So, I expect that, barring a great depression which could be attributed to either of the two parties, Ohio will remain a swing state for some time to come.

    Thanks for your comments.

    Mark Daniels
  • Rambie
    Maybe he'll announce the short list for VP with Rob Portmanm John Kasich or even both. Jazz is right, it's a little early to name his running mate and they'd be wise to keep it until later.

    SD, your doom-and-gloom for the GOP is getting old as is usually wrong. I'll agree that the GOP needs to do some soul searching and move back toward the center, but the same could still be said of the Democrats.

    Hopefully the Libertarian party can really take off on it's own this year. I know, others have accused me of being some huge liberal leftist around here, but I'm not. I don't totally agree with the Libertarian party, but I do on more than I do the Democrats and Republicans.
  • superdestroyer
    Rambie,

    the Republicans tried moving to the middle with President Bush. All they got was 5 trillion in debt, more government entitlements, a federal budget full of pork programs, and 20% approval rantings. Of course the Democrats like the huge budgets and the pork programs because they get most of the pork and stick the Republicans will the blame.

    One of the reasons that the Republicans will soon be irrelevant is that they are in a demographic trap. The Republicans are a minority party but any move they make will lose more votes than it gains. See the immigration proposals of President Bush. President Bush pander to get Hispanic votes but ended up losing more white voters than gaining any Hispanic votes.

    There is no issue where the Republicans can move to the middle, gain votes while not being out pandered by the Democrats.
  • DLS
    He won't steal the show from Obama, and if he did announce a choice, I'm cynical to the point where I believe it will be a poor choice.

    "Hopefully the Libertarian party can really take off on it's own this year."

    It needs to get rid of some of its wackier members. (Besides, that party in no way is the official designator and in no way constitutes the official definition and practice of libertarianism in this nation, something that all Americans but the most hard-core collectivists possess to some extent.) More to the point, the only way for that party to succeed is the same as for the Greens and other hopeless far-left movements, which have a proportionately tiny fraction of support in this country (as opposed to support for libertarianism if not the Libertarian Party). The answer is a multi-party system and proportional representation in the House of Representatives and state legislatures, in place of the more and less liberal, big government Duopoly we have now. (I'd also want the approval vote for single person offices.)
  • DLS
    "[T]he Republicans tried moving to the middle with President Bush. All they got was 5 trillion in debt, more government entitlements, a federal budget full of pork programs, and 20% approval rantings."

    Note that the low approval currently held by the President is due to 2006-election-time-onward dissatisfaction with Iraq and the GOP being like the Dems (power hungry, contemptuous of public desire for spending control, corrupt) as well as disassisfaction with or disappointment in the President personally (and the behavior of his administration).

    * * *

    "I'll agree that the GOP needs to do some soul searching and move back toward the center, but the same could still be said of the Democrats."

    The GOP's problem is that it is not an obvious conservative alternative to the Dems. They need to be more conservative (in the libertarian sense, not the authoritarian sense; they should shrink Washington and public spending substantially), not less so.
  • Rambie
    SD, if you really think that President Bush was the GOP moving toward "the middle" then I now have a new understanding of you and why you think the party is crashing.

    DLS, I agree, the Republican party would be very wise to move away from the authoritarian style they've been using for the past decade or so. The Democrats also need to be wary of moving into an authoritarian movement too.

    It'd be great if both parties would become more fiscally responsible as we need to address our deficit. We can't keep pushing the debt onto future generations.
  • superdestroyer
    Rambie,

    I doubt that you can call NCLB, increased government spending, a creation of another cabinet department, open borders and unlimited immigration, new medicare entitlements, and a ton of pork programs as being conservative.

    There is nothing conservative about expanding the size ans scope of government while running up huge debts.

    It is hard to argue that the Democrats are not authoritarian when they have been in front of the supreme court arguing that racial discrimination is legal (Gratz), that the government can take any property it wants whenever it wants it (Kelo), and that social engineering is more important than academic education (Seattle and Louisville).

    When the bluest cities in the U.S. want to regulate what people eat and whether they can protect themselves, it is hard to see Democrats as social libertarians. About the only two topics that Democrats want to be libertarians on are sex and drugs.
  • Holly_in_Cincinnati
    McCain Visits German Restaurant - In Columbus
    Republican presidential candidate John McCain will be at a town hall meeting in Columbus tonight. Watch it live on 10tv.com and ONNtv.com beginning at about 6:30 p.m.

    http://www.onntv.com/live/content/local/stories...
  • MJDaniels53
    Holly:
    McCain ate at Schmidt's, one of my favorite restaurants in my hometown of Columbus. I just ate there a few Fridays ago with my dad.

    Mark
blog comments powered by Disqus
© 2005-2009 The Moderate Voice | Site design by Elegant Themes | Site customization, hosting, and security by Enxit Group, LLC