Do you picture McCain's top advisors telling him he cannot win

[saltpoint]

unless he secures -- bedrock secures -- the far-right fundamentalist segment of the GOP base?

It's presumptious to second-guess the exchange in a private meeting, but I can't see them saying to him, "Look John, we have to pimp this Maverick thing a lot harder because if we don't, we lose the complicit media and the % of indies we need in swing states."

What I actually imagine them saying is, "No matter how complicit the media is with your Maverick thing, we've already lost the indies. We have to concentrate on the nutbags or you aren't going to be competitive at all."

If that is the case, perhaps Tom Ridge is off the list, as grantcart's excellent post has already suggested. The fundie nutbags are not going to tolerate a pro-choice veep, or, they aren't going to tolerate and vote for one in significant numbers to keep McCain competitive, especially with Obama mounting fierce drives in Virginia and Indiana, of all places.

Lieberman would have been a spiteful pick for McCain, stealing the "bi-partisan problem-solver" theme from Obama, but despite his hyper-hawkish support of Bush on Iraq, Lieberman remains relatively liberal on many social issues generally and is pro-choice specifically.

He's off the list as well.

I'm taking Palin off the list because she's in the shadow of a scandal and gave birth in April to a child diagnosed with Down Syndrome. That's too many astericks for a veep nom, IMO.

Also I'm scratching off Jindal, who is a bit eerie bordering on the disturbingly insane. It might be entertaining to have a self-declared exorcist on a national ticket, but it doesn't sound like a winner for the GOP, IMO.

I'm not sure how Fiorina's name ever was advanced, or why. I think she's highly marginal, at best.

That leaves: Romney, owing to his fat wallet; Portman, because he's bland and from Ohio; Thune, because he arguably maintains some of the Western states Obama might grab away; Pawlenty, who is unthreatening to GOP "moderates" but clearly a rightwing nutbag palatable to the fundies; Haley Barbour, the good-ol-boy with fund-raising prowess and a lot of long-standing connections; and Eric Cantor, who is Far Right but with almost no national profile whatsoever.

It more or less puts a squirrelly sheister like Mike Huckabee in the batter's box. He's a minister, a Protestant fundamentalist, willing and able to push all the "ballot initiative" button issues for the local and state turnouts, would be REAL pleased to have the appointment, and unfortunately for us, would become the President of the United States should McCain win and promptly croak in office.

Ya look down the GOP list of veep options and the one you stop at is even worse than the one you just left and not even as bad as the next one down. Fixers and morons and thieves and yahoos, often a combination of all four categories. And in generous doses.

Franklin Graham is laughable except when he's downright horrifying, but he's actually McCain's best choice. He's far more religiously extreme than his father, and is fluent in both hackneyed English and florid Apocalyptic. He has no voting record to attack, as he has none at all. He's the son of a religious legend. He would do as he was told. And he brings in the nutbags to the GOP base's voting block.

It's getting late in the game. The Pukes coagulate in Minneapolis Sept. 1 - 4. Pawlenty won't have to be flown in if he's the pick, but the whole shebang is competing with the Labor Day Weekend, the start of many schools and colleges, a return to the workweek in the first days of summer-to-fall, AND the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

McCain will have to choose Franklin Graham, who will take the stage, introduced by McCain, and then promptly perform a baptism on the Candidate to bless the national ticket. "I baptize you in the name of JEEEeeezus! You are one of Us, Brother John McCain! One of God's children!" Political video-bite of the century.

If McCain has any chance at all of being competitive with Obama -- and even so the trendlines are running blue -- he probably has to pass on Ridge and Lieberman and Romney and go with a Bible-thumper.

Huckabee is a good prediction. Franklin Graham would be the outrageous best choice.