Why Franklin Graham is McCain's only chance.

[saltpoint]

The people on on-line betting sites heavily favor Obama for the U.S presidential election, IMO with good reason.

The Bush administration, thieves, liars, cowards, incompetents, and scoundrels all, have in essence abandoned public service as a principle of government and fattened their wallets and the wallets of their friends instead for the last 8 years, lacing their larceny with lies.

McCain has undertaken a politically insane course by endorsing that abandonment. He's paying for it in the polls. He'll pay dearly for it on election night in November. He has some chance to win, but not a very good chance. He likely knows this and that's probably why he's been EXTRA cranky this week, with European leaders fawning over the Democratic candidate.

His campaign to date has been miserably run and McCain himself sounds like a man on his last legs, his mind and muscles both going to seed at about the same time. They may have to wheel him onto the convention stage in Minneapolis on a guerney. And in a strait-jacket.

McCain is significantly behind Obama in fundraising. He's behind in polling in swing states. Independents are drawn to Obama sensing, correctly, that McCain is more of the same Bush deceit and incompetence. Hispanics, a GOP-leaning group in elections past, now favor Obama. Younger voters? Obama. There's some but not much "Reagan Democrat" appeal to McCain. Catholic voters are still willing to give McCain a look, but many of the possible shortlisters for Obama are Catholic, not by accident, and this will chip away that much more into McCain's potential voter base.

He needs a strategy to win back Independents -- a strategy that he doesn't have. His only chance at a competitive election is to fire up the fundie nutbags. And he can't do that if he picks Ridge, who is pro-choice, or Lieberman, who is also reasonably good on social issues. The fundie nutbags are not Ridge or Lieberman voters.

McCain will have to find someone from deeper in the ditch if he expects to be at all competitive, and that means someone Dobson will write checks for and for whom the fundie nutbag base will turn out to support. Romney currently looks like a strong contender for the veep pick for McCain, except in choosing Romney, McCain risks suppressing fundie nutbag voters who might not show up to vote in competitive numbers to support McCain (whom they've never trusted) and Romney (who is unabashedly Mormon). A Romney pick validates their long-held distrust of McCain, and they may show their displeausre by staying home. Good for our side, not so hot for McCain's chances. Politically, Romney is a lit match in a dry barn.

Franklin Graham, as unstable and dangerous a man as could be dug up from that deep ditch, is the perfect choice for McCain's veep nom.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. What about fundie nutbag Mike Huckabee?

[AllentownJake]

2. I don't think Mike wants the job

I think he's happy with a radio show and doesn't want to be on a losing ticket.

[saltpoint]

4. Good point. He'd make more money in commercial tv and radio

than he would wrapping bandages for all the wounds McCain's campaign is going to suffer.

[AllentownJake]

3. The fundie nutbags

aren't as powerful as they used to be. Their children are turning against their fundie nutbags ways and Franklin Graham would turnout independents for Obama like nobody's business.

The GOP bench is rather lacking. Everyone on it has ties to some scandal or another from the past 8 years if they served in the Senate or Congress with the exception of Hagel who is all but endorsed Obama.

IMO his choices are down to Jindal and Pawlenty because they are the rising stars in the party and even though they are bad and IMO crazy people seem relatively untouched by W's corrupt administration.

[saltpoint]

6. I hope you are right on the kids of the fundie nutbags. Those younguns

have a right to be free thinkers under Madison's little piece of paper, and it would thrill me if they took advantage of it, their parents' ridiculous limitations be damned.

And we'd be real pleased to see them in the line to vote for Barack Obama in November, too.

Early on I think the Republicans thought they'd take Minnesota in a close election. I'm not sure with McCain they'll have that close election, so I'm not sure if Pawlenty can help them much. But maybe. He seems extraordinarly dull to me. Maybe that's what McCain needs -- a relatively young, dull-as-hell veep nom.

I wonder if Thune and Portman would jeopardize what may be promising political futures to sign on with McCain's losing campaign.

[AllentownJake]

11. I don't see any rising star

tying themself to the McCain disaster. Being on a losing ticket never helps you get the nomination down the road.

It took Dole 20 years to get back to the front of the line after 1976.

Quayle's career was a disaster and Kemp went into the wilderness after 1996.

[saltpoint]

12. Yes. Dole rose thru the hierarchy of GOP leadership until he was the

inevitable nominee and then got whomped at the polls.

My god Bob Dole was a slug of a candidate, wasn't he. Good lord.

Kemp actually would have been the superior nominee that year, although I don't think he would have done much better in the electoral college. He would have done better in upstate New York, as it's his home turf, but probably wouldn't have carried the state.

There aren't a dozen Republicans since Abraham Lincoln worth a damn, is my theory. Kemp at least did some pretty good work with Housing and Urban Development -- quite the exception for Republican office-holders.

Agree on Romney. He doesn't gain much if McCain picks him and McCain risks losing the fundies in the bargain, something he can ill afford.

[chimpymustgo]

7. It'll be Mittens. Romney delivers the most. Economic background. Puts Michigan in play.

AND his wife will make a compelling advocate, with her own story of a courageous health battle (to counter the Dem's healthcare plan, which will be a strong suit).

[saltpoint]

9. It could be. I don't know who else to predict McCain will choose who

won't turn him down.

If I were Thune or Portman, god forbid, I would not agree to be John McCain's running mate.

Romney brings those positives that you mention, but if we win and McCain loses, Romney hasn't gained much. Maybe a smidgeon of stature for being involved in a national campaign would position him as a "frontrunner" for 2012, but if Obama is as successful as I think he's going to be, Romney's status in 2012 will be a moot point.

I personally think Romney is among the Undead. The guy creeps me out big time.

[AllentownJake]

10. Mittens is a double edged sword

He has the economic background however, he is also a millionaire CEO in the finance industry...you know the people who got us into this mortgage and gas mess (speculation). His wife due to her husband's assets had access to healthcare that even members of congress don't have and it will be pointed out no matter what her struggle was.

Also from knowing a few evangelicals they hate Mormons. "Heretics" piss them off more than non-believers, athiest or non-christians. Mormons to the evangelical are Heretics of the worse kind and have a special place in hell. Fundie vote would go way down with a Mormon on the ticket.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. But if he picks Mittens, we get to haul out this fine bit of photography again:

[MonkeyFunk]

5. umm...

no. He won't pick Franklin Graham.

[saltpoint]

8. I don't think he will either, MonkeyFunk.

But it would thrill me if he did. It would be a reprehensible choice.

He's said to want to choose Lieberman or Ridge, but if he did that, the fundies Graham exalts and would motivate would stay away in droves in all 50 states. They already hate McCain and Ridge or Lieberman would make their heads explode.

For McCain to compete at all, he needs a veep nom who will not suppress the fundie nutbags. Without the nutbag base, he will not win the election. He likely knows it and is going to choose someone well to the Far Right to light a fire under the fundies.

If he chooses someone they don't care for, the electoral map on election night in November will be a sea of blue.

(Which would be fine with me!)

[saltpoint]

13. And please forgive me this guilty pleasure, but wouldn't it be

more fun than Brit Hume on acid to watch a vice presidential debate between Franklin Graham and say, Joe Biden?