John McCain fanboys Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei have an article in today’s Politico that discusses Team Romney’s desire to avoid John McCain’s mistakes. This means that they don’t want to look like idiots in the middle of a financial meltdown, they don’t want to pick a half-witted moron as a running mate, and they want to successfully build themselves up as a safe alternative. In the Romney camp’s view, John McCain failed on all three scores. Of course, they’re right.

The most interesting stuff in the article involves their thinking on a running mate. If their reporting is accurate, Mr. Romney is more keen on Paul Ryan than his team who thinks he’s too much of a lightning rod. Despite his mantra that he’s not ready to be president, Chris Christie is seen as the guy who wants the job the most. Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, and Susana Martinez are seen as too inexperienced and too unvetted. Selecting Mike Huckabee is seen as naked pander to the base, which would be too Palinesque.

“If not [Sen. Rob] Portman [R-Ohio], [former Minnesota governor Tim] Pawlenty, [Indiana governor Mitch] Daniels — some other incredibly boring white guy,” the official said. “If there was a fourth name on the list, it’s [Virginia Gov.] Bob McDonnell.”
One argument for Pawlenty is that he would help the ticket with evangelical Christians who are suspicious of Mormonism…

…Campaign officials have floated the idea of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, now a Fox News and talk-radio host, as a pick who would strengthen Romney’s hold on the base. But Romney does not want to signal weakness. So under current plans, the pick will not be a blatant pander to the base – once again, the opposite approach of 2008.

How accurate and how important is that line about Romney not wanting to signal weakness? If he thinks picking Huckabee would show weakness, then the same would be true for anyone picked merely for their excitement value. He’d be saying, in effect, that he isn’t good enough on his own. If this is the kind of logic Romney is using, he really could pick someone like Tim Pawlenty. He would figure that Pawlenty is a northerner and not a fire-breather, so he wouldn’t scare the crap out of suburban voters. But he’s an evangelical, so he’d help reassure the base. It’s not bad logic. It at least addresses two concerns with one stone, but it would hardly kill those concerns. On the other hand, didn’t Romney watch Pawlenty’s campaign for the nomination?

I think he’ll lean harder towards Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana. Both of them have worked in the White House before and have a more plausible case to make as presidential material than Pawlenty. They both serve in more plausible pick-up states than Minnesota. The only problem is that they both worked on Bush’s disastrous economic team. They can argue that they understand economics, which is good, but their record on economics is terrible. It’s like trying to beat FDR by picking a running mate from Herbert Hoover’s economic team. If the issue is the economy, experience matters, but so does the record.

My money is still on Sen. Portman.