Posted on 04/25/2012 2:49:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Which direction will Mitt Romney go in selecting his running mate? The Hill suggests that Romney will look for a “mini-me,” someone much like himself, as his track record as an executive in the private sector indicates:
Mitt Romney is on the hunt for a vice presidential candidate, and if his years running Bain Capital are any indication, he might be looking for a version of himself.
In his roughly 25 years at Bain, Romney tended to hire mini-Mitts — smart, ambitious, clean-cut and a little awkward, according to those who dealt closely with the men.
Romney built the private equity firm, a spinoff of the consulting firm Bain & Co., from the ground up in the mid-1980s, bringing on several people who would help him turn it into an investment giant.
“First-rate brain power, first-rate analytical power. These were sometimes kind of geeky people,” said Howard Anderson, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s school of business who invested with Bain as an entrepreneur. “They were not often people who would be elected class president.”
That would tend to favor people with extensive executive experience, which leaves out the legislators on the short lists of the commentariat. However, that would tend to strengthen the hand of some of the governors on the GOP bench, including Tim Pawlenty, whose name has gotten more mention as of late. Allahpundit gave a good rundown of Pawlenty’s appeal to Romney last night, but the strongest argument for Pawlenty is that no one would doubt his readiness to assume the Presidency if disaster struck. He’s been a pretty good campaigner who had one bad moment in a debate last year, and Pawlenty also signed onto Team Romney quickly after getting out and has been working hard (if quietly) since for Romney’s nomination. Bobby Jindal also fits the profile suggested by The Hill, and has a little more connection to the conservative base, and Bob McDonnell in Virginia as well.
If Romney wanted to roll the dice a bit, perhaps he needs to look further west. In my column today for The Week, I present a case for Jan Brewer that would entail more risk, but perhaps more reward as well:
Brewer has a record of fighting the federal government and the media. After Brewer signed a bill from the state legislature requiring law-enforcement officers to check residency status when arresting or detaining criminal suspects, Obama’s Department of Justice filed suit against the state. To the cheers of conservatives, Brewer fought back, later writing a book to bolster her case, and squared off against open-borders advocates in the media.
Nor is that the only fight Brewer has picked with the Obama administration and the media. She called a special session of the legislature to get authorization to hire outside counsel to join the lawsuit against ObamaCare, after Goddard refused to do so. Brewer also pushed for gun-rights legislation that eventually removed the permit requirement to carry guns, making Arizona one of only three states in the nation to do so. Brewer also oversaw deep cuts in social programs in order to resolve a $4 billion budget deficit, although that also included increases in some taxes.
Given Romney’s vulnerabilities with the base on immigration, health-insurance mandates, and gun rights, Brewer might be just the kind of candidate that could get the Tea Party back on board. A Brewer nomination might also force the Obama campaign to retire the “war on women” attack line. It would also firm up Romney’s standing in Arizona, as one poll this week suggested that the Republican nominee wasn’t garnering much enthusiasm in this transitioning interior-West state.
There is some downside to Brewer, too. She has had to retract a couple of her arguments on border security in the past two years, but that’s probably not enough to make her a liability in and of itself. Brewer is a hardliner on immigration, though, and that could complicate Romney’s efforts to woo the Latino vote away from Obama. It might also provide him some cover to back Marco Rubio’s upcoming efforts on immigration reform by solidifying his credentials as a borders-first candidate.
The choice depends on whether Romney feels the need for a game-changer in late summer. If the winds are already blowing favorably, Romney’s not likely to take a risk in selecting a running mate, and will go with a candidate who matches up well with himself. If Romney needs more unity from the base, though, he may consider an outside-the-box choice of a candidate who has already been battle-tested against the administration — and that could put Brewer and Rick Perry in play.
fresh meat call :-(
In a word, no.
Not a chance.
She doesn’t seem like the type who would handcuff herself to a suicide bomber.
Puh-leeze. It won’t get *my* vote. I know her too well. Now that she’s elected, she’s vetoing laws from the right with the same gusto she did when she first inherited the office from Nappy. She only signed 1070 because she was looking into the teeth of a tough election in ‘10.
Once her status as nominee was assured, it was back to “screw you TEA Party.”
Her conservative record is soft at best. Didn’t she veto a gun bill recently?
Not a chance. Romney will try to get what HE thinks is a conservative, but it will be a boring conservative, if one at all. Think Pawlenty, Daniels, Thune. The craziest he might get is the governor of NM, anx she would be wise to decline. Rubio would certainly decline.
NO - she’s like Jindal - seems to have an opportunity to really really take it to Obama handed them - seems to engage the battle - but then really doesn’t put the hammer down.
Just like the episode in the photo, she downtalked the nature of the intensity after it was done. Not what we need.
The drilling moratorium, and the Arizona law, are issues that a real bulldog would have really made interesting. Jindal and Brewer were just so so IMO on these golden opportunities.
Romney’s already on record saying he’s got to win the Hispanic vote or it could spell doom for him.
Thinking Liberal Romney is going to choose Breyer is a pipe dream. Romney’s a lot more concerned about winning liberals at this point that conservatives.
I bet Romney picks a VP well left of his campaign speeches but right of Romney’s record, if only because he can’t find anyone in the GOP left of Romney’s record.
His focus now is going to be Obama. Time to Etch-a-Sketch any resemblence to a conservative and show the world he is a more palatable liberal than Obama.
NO!!!
hahahahahahaha! funny...thanks for the laugh. Clever you are.
Rubio is auditioning for the VP nomination with a big foreign policy speech to polish his creds.
Could you please tell me why you say that about Rubio? I do not know enough about him. Thanks.
Is it just me or is there really no one who seems to want the VP spot with Romney?
Yes, a couple. I carry in my car, and because of her veto there are public streets in Tempe upon which I cannot legally drive.
She’s tax and spend and good at rubberstamping whatever the party says she should. She just might make it.
She really isn’t nearly the governor conservative web followers think, you guys only here the good stuff, which is usually her doing what she’s told.
Not really dumb, but certainly not polished.... these local radio guys in Tucson refer to her as “the frazzled Avon Lady”
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