McCain's Running Mate

RedState seems awfully secure in saying that McCain's pick is Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. I wouldn't bet a lot against it.

If this pans out, I'll feel a lot better about an editor-written headline on a column for the New York Sun, back on December 13, 2006: "McCain Hints Minn. Governor May Be His Running Mate."

I'm confident enough to put this up now, but willing to be wrong.

Right now though, every sign, signal, and background chatter indicates John McCain will pick Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota's governor, as his running mate.

UPDATE: A source close to the campaign now confirms for me that it "more likely than not" is Pawlenty. He does, however, caution me that the campaign does not actually want to leak tonight lest the Obama camp get too much of a chance to play the victim card with a sympathetic media.

Why Dayton?

With the GOP convention just days away, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain chose Friday, Aug. 29, as the time and Dayton as the place to unveil his pick for a running mate.

There's little mystery why he chose Friday. He wants to claim the next news cycle in hopes of blunting any political bounce from Barack Obama's Thursday night speech at INVESCO Field in Denver.

But the location picked for the announcement makes equal sense, according to Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. McCain and his running mate are expected to appear around noon at the Nutter Center on the campus of Wright State University in Fairborn.

"Dayton is perfect," Sabato said. "It's middle America. These are voters who will determine the next president. They're unhappy with Bush and the economy, but they don't identify with Obama — at least not so far."

If the Secret Service is vetting his family in advance of his brother’s selection as John McCain’s running mate, Scott Romney, the brother of Mitt Romney, said early this evening that it’s news to him.

Scott Romney said he doesn’t know anything about the Secret Service sweeping his sister’s house as reported earlier today by the Web site of The Hill newspaper in Washington.

In a strong sign that John McCain has not selected Joe Lieberman to be his running mate, Republican members of Congress were told today by McCain's campaign that the Arizona senator would tap a traditional number two, according to a GOP source.

The source said that would indicate that McCain has tapped either Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty.

Former McCain rival and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney left his beachfront home in San Diego this morning with an overnight
bag. A son says Romney was headed to an unspecified location in California.

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: The Obama campaign signaled a willingness on Thursday to go after Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., for the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse while saying that the populist argument it is building against John McCain will continue even if the presumptive Republican nominee taps the son of a truck driver as his running mate. 

Barack Obama’s campaign manager said today that if Republican John McCain selects Michigan native and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate, he “will be doubling-down on ‘out of touch.’”

Television crews are currently parked outside Mitt Romney’s Belmont manse wondering if he is John McCain’s pick for VP.

McCain's decision is known only to his small inner circle of advisers, no more than three or four people, who have refused all public discussion on the matter. Republicans close to the campaign said that the top contenders remained the same three men who have been the source of speculation for weeks: former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and, possibly, Senator Joseph Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.

Speculation is increasingly centered on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, although Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman remains an option and is in the final mix.

Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain stayed mum about his pick of a running mate Thursday and one top prospect, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, abruptly canceled numerous public appearances.

According to sources with strong Michigan ties, the Secret Service has conducted a security sweep of the home of Romney’s sister. Romney was raised in Michigan, where his father served as governor.