Tim Pawlenty

The Boston Herald reports that the Presidential buzz has John McCain picking his Vice President as early as this week, and touts Mitt Romney as the favorite. Romney and his family are vacationing in Canada, at Ontario's Lake Huron. Lake Huron seperates the province of Ontario from Romney's home state of Michigan, where he is highly regarded due to his father, former 1968 Republican Presidential candidate George Romney, having been a very popular governor. Romney, thus, offers John McCain help in two states, not just one, though both traditionally are blue states typically in the Democratic column during Presidential Novembers. In the 2004 Presidential election, John Kerry swamped George W. Bush in the Bay State, but he won Michigan by only 165,000 out of nearly 5 million votes cast, giving John McCain and the GOP wet dreams about carrying the state this November.

"We're jealous is all," ANC News quoted the 41st President as saying. Later, at a campaign whistle stop in Epping, New Hampshire, John McCain was asked if he was ready to name his running mate. "We'll announce when we're ready to announce," he said, smiling.

Announcing a Vice President now would have the advantage of circling the wagons early, and having a sharpshooter to help the 72-year-old McCain shoulder the burden of taking on his youthful and charismatic opponent. However, it is an American tradition to announce the Vice Presidential pick at the nominating convention, and what John McCain could gain in the short-term might not compensate for the loss of drama that naming a Veep this early would cause, making the GOP convention a distinct anti-climax that would be avoided by most TV viewers. Picking a Veep is the only drama left at national political conventions.

Barack Obama has shown strength in the Granite State, which typically goes with the Republican candidate every fourth November but increasingly has become a swing state. In New Hampshire, recent polls reveal that Obama has pulled into a statistical tie with McCain, who had led by six points earlier in the year. Blessed with a huge war chest, Barrack Obama can exhaust McCain financially and physically through his shows of strength in traditional red states, as the Republican is forced to shore up his strength in those wavering states, like New Hampshire.

New Hampshire's four electoral votes gave George W. Bush the presidency in 2000, after the right-wing justices on the U.S Supreme Court threw out precedent and, using the 14th Amendment as their aegis despite being on record as opposing it, put a stop to a democratic election in the state of Florida. The Sunshine state's governor Charlie Crist, along with Mitt Romney, have been touted as potential running mates for John McCain, as has Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

CNN Correspondent Dana Bash, trying to make some news when most of the media attention is on Barack Obama's triumphant tour of Europe and the Middle East, quoted attendees at a "small private meeting with John McCain" as saying the GOP nominee presumptive dropped a broad hint that he favors Tim Pawlenty as his running mate. Without warning. McCain allegedly told the meeting of Republican delegates to the 2008 Republican Convention that they are "really going to like" the Minnesota Governor.

According to Bash, the attendees of the meeting related that John McCain also "said nice things about Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani, but those appeared to be standard lines he says about former rivals."

When Tim Pawlenty was up for re-election as governor in 2006, John McCain campaigned for him in Minnesota a week before the November 2006 election.

."I know of no one who will make a greater contribution to the future of America than this great leader," McCain said at one campaign stop. "This is the kind of leadership that I'd like to pass the torch to."

In January 2007, John McCain named Tim Pawlenty a co-chair of his presidential exploratory committee, and he eventually was appointed co-chair of McCain's campaign, along with bank lobbyist "Foreclosure" Phil Gramm (who recently was ditched from the McCain campaign for his role in de-regulating banks and causing the current financial industry meltdown) and Tom Loeffler.

Thus, one can say that Tim Pawlenty's chances to be named Vice President on the 2008 Republican ticket are robust, but not spectacular. He is by no means a sure thing, as CNN's Dana Bash would have us believe. Florida Governor Charlie Crist is far more popular in his home state than Pawlenty is in Minnesota, or Mitt Romney in the Bay State. (A one-term governor, Romney did not stand for reelection in Massachusetts to avoid the being beaten, and thus lose his chance for national office.) With Charlie Crist on the ticket likely would ensure that the Sunshine State's 27 electoral votes would wind up in the GOP column for a third straight time this century after being won by Bill Clinton in 1992 and '96.

The report that Tim Pawlenty is still the apple of McCain's eye is an example of the ageless American practice, in business and in politics, of "making a horse out of horse----." The 2008 Republican National Convention is going to be held in St. Paul, Minnesota, which is Pawlenty's hometown. He grew up in South St. Paul. As Governor of the Gopher State, Pawlenty is the de facto host to the convention. This likely is the root of John McCain's statement to Republican convention delegates from New Hampshire, "really going to like" Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. If the convention was held in Miami Beach, McCain would have said "You're really going to like Charile Crist," or if there was any possibility of holding a convention in New Orleans (which was destroyed by George W. Bush's negligence), he could have said, "You really going to really like Bobby Jindal."

Tim Pawlenty may very well be a front-runner to become McCain's running mate, but it is unlikely that he will bring the excitement to the campaign that a Bobby Jindal can, who is younger and -- as an Asian Indian -- brings a bit of "color" to the Republican ticket, which will be headed by the whitest of white Cold War warriors, a throwback to a former era. Steve Kornacki of the New York Observer said that Pawlenty gave a "flat" performance on ABC's This Week, in what was considered by the press to be a rehersal as John McCain's running mate. At best, he would be a "generic candidate" for Vice President.

Now in his second term as governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty's star has been fading since George W. Bush lost Minnesota to John Kerry in the 2004 general election, 48% to Kerry's 51%. Pawlenty had failed to deliver, despite Karl Rove's prediction that Minnesota would go red in '04. Pawlenty had been touted as a potential Republican Presidential nominee before the 2004 election, particularly after St. Paul was anointed the site for the 2008 GOP Convention. There was still talk that he might one day head the GOP ticket until his disappointing showing in his 2006 re-election bid.