Is McCain Thinking Of Naming A Pro-Choice VP? UPDATE: Not Ridge?

It's all silly season stuff but according to National Review Online McCain has been testing the waters.

NR has learned that the McCain campaign has been calling key state GOP officials around the country the last couple of days and sounding them out about the consequences of a pro-choice VP pick. The campaign is asking about the reaction of conservative grass-roots activists to such a pick and whether a pro-choicer can be sold to them. This is an indication that the McCain campaign is serious about the possibility of a pro-choice VP nominee and that McCain leaving the door open to Tom Ridge last week may not have been merely a friendly nod to a longtime supporter.

Now speculation is turning to Rudy as the possible pro-choice option.

Personally, abortion isn't a make or break issue (judges that will over turn Roe most definitely is) but a pro-choice VP pick just makes no sense to me.

Obviously, if McCain goes that route he thinks that with his pro-life record and Obama's refusal to support a bill that would have outlawed what is essentially infanticide, pro-lifers aren't going to desert him. Still, it seems McCain has to really ask himself is Ridge, Giuliani or some other choice so great that it's worth the risk of killing the Republican coalition?

Related...There is a report that McCain will name his VP a week from this Friday in Ohio. That's the day after Obama's ascension acceptance speech and McCain's 72nd birthday. Beyond Ohio's status as a must have battleground state, does the location of the announcement hint at anything? As far as I know the only VP candidate being talked about from Ohio is Rob Portman and he's solidly pro-life.

As I said, it's all silly season speculation at this point.

UPDATE:

Halperin says Ridge is out but McCain aides are floating the idea of a pro-choice running mate by big GOP donors.

As has been brought up in the comments, could Lieberman be the one? Maybe but it seems being pro-choice is the least of Lieberman's issues. He is a freaking Democrat after all. Yeah, yeah, 'independent', I know. The fact is 8 years ago he was the Democrats VP nominee and he caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate so....DEMOCRAT.

A McCain/Lieberman ticket pretty much ruins the Republican Party for a very long time, right? Think about it, in one fell swoop that ticket would alienate the fiscal conservatives*, social conservatives and anyone who simply thinks of themselves as a Republican and is at all to the right of say, Arlen Specter. What's left exactly to build on after that?

*Yes, fiscal-cons like McCain on spending but are wary of him on taxes as well as cap and trade and his flights of populist rhetoric on 'big' business and 'Wall Street'.

posted by DrewM. at 01:42 PM

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