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Will Romney Pick a Businessperson Instead of a Pol?

May 7, 2012 | 3:11 PM

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I don't know who Mitt Romney will select as his vice presidential nominee. I do know that the media is speculating about the likes of Sen. Rob Portman who is the current it-boy now that Sen. Marco Rubio seems to have faded. Of course, any Republican with an Hispanic surname seems to be under consideration, too.

As long as we're speculating, I can offer a few reasons why it won't be a politician at all.

1. What good would it do to pick a pol? They don't really bring in their home states. And in the 21st century candidates have wisely eschewed this idea which is why we've had three veeps from states with three electoral votes--Cheney, Biden, and Palin. Michael Dukakis picked Lloyd Bentsen in part in the hope of winning Texas. Uh, not so much. The days of a veep pulling in a state are over.

2. Does Romney really believe you need to be a pol to be president? In his heart does Mitt Romney, the one-term governor of Massachusetts, really believe that you need to have served in a state house or Congress to be a good president? I doubt it. If he seems to believe in one thing--and that's a big if--it's effective executives, to paraphrase Peter Drucker. I think he's just as likely to look at a CEO or someone in the military as a pol. Who? His old Bain pal Meg Whitman would have been his style had she not been a hapless campaigner and pro-choice in a party that doesn't like that in their nominees. My guess is that the Romney pick is a CEO somewhere in his FEC filings because Romney likes loyalty.

3. A CEO is a long ball, which will help. If it's August and Romney is still far enough behind on the electoral map, a long ball move like a CEO might shake up the race. Of course, it'll be a vetted, not-Sarah Palin pick. Romney, the MBA, the Bainiac, is not going to repeat the no-analysis follies of the McCain campaign. There will be decision trees and PowerPoints, thinking and analyzing, before Romney settles on a business partner--with emphasis on the word business.

Biden in Iowa: Republicans 'Scoff' At Manufacturing

By George E. Condon Jr.

March 28, 2012 | 5:13 PM

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Vice President Joe Biden's speech in Iowa on Wednesday was more than a full-throated attack on Republican Mitt Romney's economic policies. It was also the latest indication that the Obama campaign intends to champion its manufacturing policies in battleground states in the Midwest, inviting voters, as Biden did Wednesday, to compare the president's program to what it casts as the likely Republican nominee's downplaying of manufacturing as a key part of America's economic recovery.

Biden pointedly quoted the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper rarely cited by Democrats, as stating, "Romney appeared to scoff, first in Detroit, then in Florida, at the notion of manufacturing as a job engine for the future." That, Biden said, sets up what he called the "choice in this election" between "our philosophy that believes manufacturing is central to our economy, and their philosophy that scoffs at it."

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Biden, campaign, Iowa, manufacturing, Romney

Let the Campaign Begin; Biden Rips Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum in Toledo Speech

By Major Garrett

March 15, 2012 | 5:33 AM

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Mitt Romney may dismiss Newt Gingrich as a whinning wannabe, and Rick Santorum's campaign may say it's time for the former speaker to bow out. Santorum may call Romney a weak front-runner, and Romney may call Santorum "desperate." But it doesn't matter to Vice President Joe Biden.

From Biden's point of view -- and the view of President Obama's reelection team -- Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich are all cookie-cutter Republicans hard-baked in a rule-free, free-market ideology dangerous to the country's future. In sum, all three represent the same policies and the same threat -- though only one is likely to become the GOP standard-bearer.

Biden delivered the first of several campaign set-piece speeches in Toledo, Ohio, to members of the United Autoworkers Local 12. To the surprise of no one, the vice president trumpeted the success of the auto bailout first started by President George W. Bush ($13.4 billion) but significantly expanded by Obama (roughly $60 billion in loans and stock purchases).

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Biden, campaign, Chrysler, GM, middle class, Obama, Ohio, re-election, Republicans

A Mormon-Catholic Ticket Would be Groundbreaking and Typically American

By Matthew Cooper

October 27, 2011 | 1:48 PM

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When Elena Kagan was sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 2010, it was an historic event: For the first time in American history, there was no Protestant member of the nation's' highest court.

Could 2012 be a presidential ticket of a major party without a protestant?

Were Mitt Romney to be the Republican presidential nominee and were he to choose a Catholic running mate--say, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie--that would seem to be such an event. Of course, the Obama-Biden ticket was historically WASP-free, an African-American attendee of the United Church of Christ--until the Jeremiah Wright controversy church--and a Roman Catholic.

The religions of our presidential nominees say a lot about our diversity and increasing tolerance, famously so with Catholics. When Al Smith was the Democratic nominee for President in 1928, it was shocking and another Catholic wouldn't be on the ticket until 1960. Then Catholics began popping up as veeps: William E. Miller on the Republican ticket in 1964; on the Democratic side, Ed Muskie in 1968, Sargent Shriver in 1972 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. John Kerry was the last Catholic to top a presidential ticket. No one made a fuss and the Kerry campaign found the number of Americans who were even aware of his Catholic faith and for whom it mattered to be inconsequential.

But the religious fludity of our candidates and their families say a lot, too. Ann Romney joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. George W. Bush was raised an Episcopalian but became a Methodist while his brother Jeb the Florida governor, became a Catholic. Spiro Agnew was Greek Orthodox turned Episcopalian. Sarah Palin was baptized a Catholic but her family attended non denominational churches and she joined a Pentacostal congregation

A quarter of Americans have switched their faith, according to a study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and within Protestant affiliations that number rises to 44 percent.

In 2003, Romney was sworn in as governor of Massachusetts using the same traditional Bible that his father had used for his swearing in as governor of Michigan in 1962. Were he to win in 2012 and choose the Book of Mormon for his 2013 swearing in, he'd be part of an American tradition

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