The Veepstakes

I want to hold out reasonable hope for a contested convention, but I don’t see it.  There are several very unlikely paths for a contested convention.  The first path is that Romney would have to commit some kind of act of electoral suicide and do it very soon.  He has been running for President for over 5 years, and while he has made his mistakes, a Romney error that derailed his campaign at this point would have to be something much worse than anything we have seen him do.  The second path is that Santorum stumbles on a message with much greater appeal to Republican-leaning suburbanites and those who identify themselves as “somewhat conservative.”  If Romney was going to commit political suicide he probably would have done it already.  If Santorum was going to come up with and stick to a broadly appealing message, he would have done it already.  I think that Santorum’s performance might actually improve a little now that it is becoming totally obvious that Romney is going to win and some of the pressure is off, but he won’t improve enough to make a difference.  It is mostly too late, and, even if it wasn’t, Santorum would still be Santorum.  So we turn to the Veepstakes.

My first thought is that Romney’s running mate should not be Santorum.  A Romney-Santorum pairing makes sense on one level.  Romney does better with the partly overlapping categories of suburbanites, the middle-class, and the college educated.  Santorum does better among the rural voters and evangelicals (with the caveats that many evangelicals are college educated, etc.)  Between Romney and Santorum, you seem to get a united (though still minority) Republican coalition.  Romney still shouldn’t do it.  Romney has enough problems without trying to clean up the daily or weekly messes that Santorum’s mouth would get the Romney campaign into.  And that’s just the political case.  Nothing about Santorum’s earlier political career or how Santorum managed his presidential campaign indicates that Santorum would be an especially good chief executive if something were to happen to a President Romney. 

So what (political) qualities should Romney want in a vice presidential pick?  The first is that Romney’s vice presidential running mate would have to be solidly socially conservative.  Romney doesn’t have much credibility with social conservatives and, if he has any judgment at all, he will pick  a social conservative to keep his coalition together.  But there are socially conservatives and socially conservatives.  There are social conservatives who can be alienating to those who haven’t already bought into the center-right narrative and those who are likeable to those voters who might not be committed social conservatives, but are not aggressive and hostile social liberals.  My sense is that Santorum is more the first kind of social conservative and Huckabee is more the second kind.  It isn’t even about policy really.  Barack Obama and Howard Dean are both social liberals.  Obama is, in some ways, more socially liberal than Dean, but Obama is much less alienating to swing voters.  You’ll notice that Obama doesn’t go around giving screams of rage or talking about how speeches by Dwight Eisenhower make him want to throw up. 

The second quality that Romney ought to look for is a smooth and sharp approach to economic policy.  The Romney campaign is going to have some major policy explaining challenges.  Most people don’t know much about premium support Medicare.  Talking about gradually transitioning away from a system of employer-provided health insurance is going to be tricky (Romney usually falls flat when he tries to do it.)  Romney is going to settle on some moderated version of Ryancare and Romney’s running mate is going to have to defend Ryancare  in short bursts on (sometimes hostile) interviews and during debate.  It is going to have to be someone who takes entitlement and health care policy seriously.  They will also have to make their point in a pithy, detailed, calm, and nonthreatening manner.  Not one of the Republicans who ran for President were able to do any such thing.  Paul Ryan does it all the time, but he is busy. 

Romney will also need an attack dog, but a certain kind of attack dog.  Romney can take the weight of attacking Obama for the weak recovery.  What Romney will need is somebody who will be able to counterattack the Obama team’s demagoguery on Republican entitlement reform and health care reform policies.  No matter how vague and how moderate Romney’s platform ends up being, it will still obviously involve large spending cuts and major (if gradual) changes to how health care is financed.  These will be a target for the Obama team and they will do everything they can to scare the pants off the electorate (especially old people.)  As Paul Ryan said, Obama’s budget plan is, on paper, a plan for the country to go broke by 2027.  But there is a reason why Obama has gone with the Apocalypse 2027 strategy.  The Apocalypse strategy allows Obama to avoid having to talk about the kinds of middle-class tax increases and sharp, centralized cuts to Medicare that it would require for the Democrats to produce a sustainable budget.  The Republican Party, and especially the Republican vice presidential candidate, is going to have to make the case that the Obama strategy is to pretend to budget the country into bankruptcy, while actually planning to increase middle-class taxes and empower federal bureaucrats to deny care to the elderly.  This kind of counterattack is pretty complicated and depends on the speaker building credibility with the audience.  It is an attack best made with a dagger and a calm expression than with axe-wielding indignation (so once again, no Santorum.) 

So who does that leave for Romney?  My first choice for President was Mitch Daniels and I still think he would be a very good choice (especially on entitlement and health care policy), but I don’t think he would, as a political matter, be the best choice.  The social issues “truce” comment would come back to bite him with social conservatives.  It wouldn’t be fatal.  Daniels has a good social conservative record, and he would still be a much better choice than Santorum, but I still don’t think he would be at the very top of the list.  My top choices would be either Bobby Jindal of Louisiana or Bob McDonnell of Virginia.  They are both socially conservative, spending cutting governors who maintained core government services.  Every time I’ve seen Jindal talk about entitlement policy or health care policy, he has been outstanding.  I’m talking on the same level as Paul Ryan.  McDonnell is the anti-Santorum - in a good way.  When he ran for governor in 2009, the Democrats tried to change the subject in the election from the economy to abortion.  McDonnell didn’t back away from his pro-life beliefs but he kept the focus on his economic message.   Both Jindal and McDonnell have the competent, confident, well informed demeanor that a Republican vice presidential candidate is going to need to sell a fairly complicated message.

I agree with Peter Lawler and Larry Sasbato that it would be a good idea for Romney to announce his running mate somewhat earlier than usual, though for somewhat different reasons.  I think a little earlier is better because you want to get the media vetting out of the way early.  The initial mainstream media scrutiny of Romney’s choice is going to be brutal.  The transition belt from liberal think tanks and message shops to “mainstream” outlets means that in the same week that Romney announces his vice presidential choice, the New York Times is going to run at least one front page attack story that is basically a press release from the Center for American Progress.  Then the major networks will lead their news programs with that story.  And it doesn’t matter who Romney picks.  It will be something.  The key is for the Romney team to be ready with answers and to shift the conversation back to the issues.  The earlier they get this out of the way, the better.  The second reason to name the vice presidential candidate a little earlier is because the Romney campaign has a tough job.  Some parts of Romney’s job are fairly easy.  It is easy to point out that the unemployment rate and gas prices are higher than most everyone would like.  It is a lot harder to explain policies that will put us on a path to a sustainable budget.  It is tough to explain how the Obama budget is a cover for broadly higher taxes and centralized health care cuts.  The sooner the Romney team gets on those jobs (and Romney probably isn’t the best guy to do them), the better.    

That doesn’t mean Romney should rush his choice.  Whoever he picks should be thoroughly vetted and briefed and the introduction should be carefully planned and integrated into campaign’s strategy.  In this sense, they should basically do the opposite of what the McCain campaign did in 2008.  He doesn’t have to wait for just before the Republican National Convention, but he should be careful to get it right.