As Ramesh Ponnuru notes at The Corner, it’s easy to see why people are talking about a McCain-Huckabee ticket:
The upsides are obvious. They’re the first- and third- best vote-getters in the Republican field. Huckabee helps to make up for McCain’s weakness with evangelical Protestants and, to a lesser extent, his weakness on domestic policy.
And, as Ponnuru notes, he’d help in the south. But there’s a downside too:
The job of the vice president has changed, thanks to Clinton’s decision to pick Al Gore in 1992 and Bush’s decision to pick Dick Cheney in 2000. These men, at the time they were picked, were extraordinarily well respected; and they went on to have greater responsibilities than previous vice presidents. I think voters now expect vice presidential nominees to pass a higher bar. They can’t be picked solely to win a state or lock down a constituency. They have to be plausible presidents.
I think that’s been true for awhile now. First of all, I think it’s been a long time since a Vice-Presidential candidate actually helped the ticket win — the last time I can think of would be Kennedy-Johnson in 1960. What did Spiro Agnew bring to Nixon ? Or Walter Mondale to Carter ? Or, dear God, Dan Quayle to George H.W. Bush ?
I think the Vice-Presidential pick is going to be an important one for McCain, largely because of his age. If he wins, he would be the oldest incoming President in American history and the public, naturally, will have some concern about his age. Reagan addressed these issues in 1980 by picking a younger, experienced, political adversary , George Bush, as his running mate. If McCain picks Huckabee, a lot of people are going to be asking themselves if they can picture the day that Huckabee is forced by the 25th Amendment to take the oath of office.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
McCain at the top of the ticket is a non starter for me.
February 6th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
If McCain wants to reach out to conservatives, and pick up the South, he should ask Thompson to be V.P.
And McCain is really old……