It seems that John McCain has made up his mind on a running mate, and will announce his choice tomorrow morning in Dayton, Ohio:
SEDONA, Ariz., Aug. 27 — Republican presidential candidate John McCain has settled on a running mate, and the pair will appear together on Friday at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, according to Republican sources outside the campaign.
McCain will notify his choice on Thursday, one source said. The decision is closely held among just a handful of the senator’s top advisers.
Speculation has centered on several candidates, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).
But all the chatter is on a certain former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate:
[T]he most controversial candidate remains Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, who was reelected to the Senate as an independent after losing the Democratic primary and has infuriated his former party with his embrace of McCain, a longtime friend.
“You keep hearing that he really wants Lieberman,” said a Republican source who talks frequently with McCain’s advisers. The source added that McCain “can be stubborn.”
Another senior GOP adviser said picking Lieberman would be a way to say that McCain is a “transformational politician,” but it was unlikely that the benefit of that would offset the angst it would cause among party conservatives.
Republican antiabortion forces have made it known that the outrage that would be felt at next week’s party convention over a Lieberman selection would dwarf any disunity on display at the Democratic gathering in Denver. And while some conservative activists love to hear Lieberman accuse Obama of being inexperienced, they have drawn the line at the notion that the party’s vice presidential nominee could be someone who voted against the confirmations of conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Even Karl Rove has taken time off from his Fox News gig to get involved:
Republican strategist Karl Rove called Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) late last week and urged him to contact Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to withdraw his name from vice presidential consideration, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.
Lieberman dismissed the request, these sources agreed.
Lieberman “laughed at the suggestion and certainly did not call [McCain] on it,” said one source familiar with the details.
“Rove called Lieberman,” recounted a second source. “Lieberman told him he would not make that call.”
It also appears that Rove is behind much of the pro-Romney chatter that we’ve been hearing recently.
I’m sure more rumors will circulate as the day goes on, but this much is clear; if McCain picks Lieberman it will be a monumentally stupid idea that will turn the Republican National Convention upside down, and threaten to derail the progress that McCain has made in the polls over the past several weeks.
