Pawlenty would be a better VP pick for McCain than Romney

National Review is reporting that the final decision on McCain’s VP pick will be taken today. The CW has the choice coming down to Romney or Pawlenty. I don’t think either of these two are perfect, or even the best, candidates but the case for Pawlenty strikes me as the stronger. The strikes against Romney are that his feud with McCain during the primaries will provide the Democrats with plenty of material, his wealth and record of business rationalisation are also liabilities during these tough economic times while Romney’s flip-flops make him open to attack. The advantages he would bring are executive experience, economic smarts and a boost in Michigan and several Western swing states with large Mormon populations.

Pawlenty with his working class background provides McCain with cover against the populist campaign the Democrats seem increasingly keen on running. He also would probably flip Minnesota into the Republican column—although, Democratic operatives I have spoken to today dispute this—giving McCain a potentially crucial electoral college boost. To round things off, he is popular with evangelicals. The rap against him is that his foreign policy knowledge is minimal, undercutting McCain’s argument about national security being the paramount issue and making him vulnerable to a sandbagging from Biden during the VP debate.

It is because of the evident weaknesses of these two candidates that I wouldn’t be surprised if McCain sprung a surprise. Anyway, we don’t have long to wait now as the pick will be unveiled at a rally in Ohio on Friday morning meaning that the name will likely leak by midnight on Thursday.