Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has reemerged as a viable vice presidential candidate who would check many of the boxes Mitt Romney is looking for in a running mate.
He’s an experienced legislator who has earned respect from both parties in Congress, and if he didn’t end up in a Romney cabinet many think he could one day become the Republican leader in the Senate.
In an interview with The Hill, Thune acknowledged he’s been to Boston to meet Romney’s senior advisers and has met Beth Myers, who is leading the search for the vice presidential nominee.
Thune will no longer say whether he is being vetted, a telling distinction from a month ago when he freely admitted to The Hill that no one from Romney’s vetting team had contacted him.
Talk of Thune’s national political ambitions had receded to the point of nearly vanishing until June, when he was invited along with other potential running mates to an exclusive retreat the Romney campaign hosted with its biggest donors in Park City, Utah.
Read More at The Hill. By Alexander Bolton.
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I disagree with Thune. I’m not going to debate his basic philosophical qualifications. I’ll give it to you by shooting straight from the hip.
Romney needs to pick based on the fundamentals if Vice Presidential candidacy.
First, pick someone to balance your philosophical perspective, but not one who might be publically disagreeing.
Second, pick someone who will help in “swing states” or high population states. Thune loses there.
Third, pick someone from a demographic group that will allow you to grow your following in that group without negatively impacting others. For this, you need a woman, Hispanic, or black. If Condi Rice was in a large swing state instead of California, she’d be a good choice. Since she isn’t, Allen West, Marco Rubio, or someone from Ohio or Wisconsin is a good choice. Pennsylvania would be a possibility if it wasn’t for the fact that Romney is already from the Northeast, and it wouldn’t help the demographics.