STF na Mídia - MyClipp

Bloomberg/ ­- Politics, Dom, 15 de Abril de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)
History Won’t Help Pick Romney’s
Running Mate
About Albert R Hunt Albert R. Hunt is the executive
editor of Bloomberg News, directing coverage of the
Washington bureau, which includes more than 250
reporters and editors. He hosts the weekly television
show "Political Capital with Al Hunt" and writes a
weekly column for Bloomberg and the International
Herald Tribune. More about Albert R Hunt The media
is rife with speculation about Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan,
Chris Christie, Susana Martinez, Bob McDonnell or
Rob Portman, as possible running mates for Mitt
Romney. It’s the time of the political season when
conjecture runs wild, much of it ill­-informed. Romney’s
choice of a vice­- presidential candidate is likely to
evolve, in ways unforeseeable today, over the next
four months. In weighing the reliability of columns or
stories that tell you Romney is most comfortable with
Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman and budget policy
wonk, or that Rubio, the young Cuban­-American
freshman senator from Florida, is the linchpin to the
Latino vote, consider these examples from recent
elections: In April 2000, the leading Democratic
contenders were supposed to be Senators John Kerry
of Massachusetts or John Edwards of North Carolina.
The nominee, Vice President Al Gore did pick a
Democratic senator: Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
There was a longer list of Republican contenders that
year, though Pennsylvania’s popular governor, Tom
Ridge, shot to the top after former Congressman and
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was tapped to head a
search committee. Right before the summer
convention, George W. Bush instead selected Cheney.
Unknown Palin Four years ago, Senator Joe Biden of
Delaware was considered one of the leading
contenders. But on the Republican side, John McCain
couldn’t have picked Sarah Palin out of a lineup in
April 2008. He barely knew who she was when he
selected her four months later. Then there’s the
supposed electoral weight some candidates bring:
Rubio in Florida or Portman in Ohio. Yet over the past
40 years and 10 presidential elections, no running
mate has made the difference in carrying a state. (Vice
President Walter Mondale, running with President
Jimmy Carter in 1980, is a debatable exception.)
Devotees of the Electoral College love to point to
Lyndon Johnson of Texas winning the presidency for
John F. Kennedy in 1960. Johnson almost surely
carried his home state for Kennedy, but JFK would
have won in any case. And there have been highly
praised vice presidential choices that couldn’t even
make a difference even in their home states: Texas
Democrat Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 and New York
Republican Jack Kemp in 1996. So much for that
theory. That isn’t to say that Romney’s selection is
unimportant. It will help shape what the campaign
hopes is a reset ­-­- or a shaking of the etch­-a­-sketch ­-of
the nominee as he faces a different electorate. It
can send a message. Both George W. Bush, with
Cheney, and Barack Obama, by picking Biden,
reassured voters about their relative inexperience. Bill
Clinton and Gore symbolized a new generation ready
to take charge after the fall of communism. Ronald
Reagan made a bow to the center and governance by
selecting George H.W. Bush, though he did so only
after the dubious “co­-presidency” dream ticket with
Gerald Ford collapsed. The chief consideration, people
who’ve been through the process agree, is do no
harm. Running mates can help marginally; they can
hurt substantially. Some previous exposure to the
national limelight is helpful; it’s a tough vetting league
for rookies. That’s why the Romney team needs to ask
hard questions of the more appealing choices. Rubio’s
telegenic youth and his ethnicity provide an attractive
balance to Romney’s awkward, corporate persona. Yet
the 40­-year­-old Florida lawmaker is inexperienced,
hasn’t impressed Washington heavyweights with his
substance or readiness to be president, and still faces
some controversies in his home state. Fiscal
Conservative Ryan, 42, is the poster child for the
conservative economic establishment. He’s a policy
expert who they see as the heir­- apparent to the late
Jack Kemp. He’s also never run outside his small
congressional district and has never shown any of
Kemp’s passion for equal opportunities and civil rights.
The House Budget Committee chairman’s fiscal plan
could be politically perilous and substantively
questionable: He won’t say how he would pay for his
$4.6 trillion tax cuts, which principally go to the
wealthy. The economic­-conservative wing has a big
bullhorn in the party. That might deter Romney from
considering Mike Huckabee, the ex­-Arkansas governor
and 2008 presidential aspirant with an
economic­-populist streak that appeals to evangelicals.
Other candidates who might be acceptable to
evangelicals and economic conservatives could
complicate Romney’s problems with women voters;
such is the case with former Pennsylvania Senator
Rick Santorum, who has said he’d like contraception to
be outlawed, or Virginia Governor McDonnell, who
signed legislation requiring women to undergo an
ultrasound before an abortion. Romney could turn to
102