Guess Who’s Trying To Kill The Lieberman For Vice President Boomlet?

Can you guess? A hint: He’s a Fox News commentator and doesn’t exactly represent change for either the country or the Republican Party’s leadership. And he has reportedly been pressing hard for GOP certain nominee Sen. John McCain to pick former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Can you guess who? Yes, it’s him…. FOOTNOTE: This story seems to contradict a key detail in Robert Novak’s earlier column…and suggests that perhaps Novak’s source was..guess who…..

UPDATE: If you read THIS STORY you can see the source for Novak was almost certainly Rove, who has been a Novak source before.

Meanwhile McCain has reportedly made his selection for Veep and will inform Friday. But watch tomorrow.

It’s possible that the identity of the McCain pick will magically trickle out tomorrow…like, late afternoon…or evening. If so, it will suggest the story was leaked to dilute media attention from Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech tomorrow in front of a crowd of 70,000. The OFFICIAL announcement won’t be until Friday. On big political stories during high-stakes political campaigns leaks don’t just happen.

Mr. McCain’s decision is known only to his small inner circle of advisers, no more than three or four people, who have refused all public discussion on the matter. Republicans close to the campaign said that the top contenders remained the same three men who have been the source of speculation for weeks: former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and, possibly, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.

It was unclear how seriously Mr. McCain was considering his good friend, Mr. Lieberman, who favors abortion rights and whose selection could set off a revolt among delegates at the Republican National Convention next week in Minneapolis-St. Paul as well as a furious backlash among Christian conservatives, a crucial voting bloc of the Republican Party. But as recently as Tuesday, Mr. McCain was said to still be entertaining the idea of Mr. Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2000.

Under this option, Mr. McCain’s choice of Mr. Lieberman would help him appeal to women, independents and conservative Democrats in a tough year for Republican candidates. “It’s really alive in McCain’s mind,” said one Republican consultant familiar with some of the campaign’s deliberations.

Other Republicans said they suspected that whatever Mr. McCain’s personal views, his aides could be pushing Mr. Lieberman with reporters as part of a disinformation campaign to stir interest in the selection and to make it appear as if Mr. McCain, a longtime opponent of abortion, was open to all possibilities and was therefore more of an independent candidate.

The problem for McCain: if it is Romney, given the other report, Democrats could paint it as a Karl Rove choice and McCain giving into Rove pressure — and use it as part of the continuing Democratic theme of McCain as Bush Lite.