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McCain's vice

James Forsyth

Friday, 8th February 2008

John McCain is stressing that he isn’t counting Mike Huckabee out yet but the party is now rallying around McCain. Karl Rove has donated the maximum amount allowed to the campaign and President Bush implicitly endorsed McCain today. Huckabee will likely fight on for a while as the happy, anti-establishment warrior but it is virtually impossible to see how he can actually force this thing to the convention.

Attention is now turning to who McCain picks as his VP with various names being floated. My hunch, and a feeling shared by lots of the folk I spoke to in Washington this week, is that McCain will pick someone with the national security credentials to be ready to be president from day one principally because that is the only way to avoid McCain’s age and health becoming major issues in the campaign.

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callingallcomets

February 9th, 2008 12:45am

General Petraeus would be an inspired choice - outside the political circle, much younger than McCain, a canny intellectual soldier who has delivered. Every time he appeared people would recall that moment when HRC called him a liar.

TGF UKIP

February 10th, 2008 7:55pm

My hunch is that McCain will leave this as late as possible to see who the Democrat Candidate is going to be. If it's Hillary it is going to leave him relatively free as the base will need no motivating. If it's Obama though who's fairly strong with evangelicals himself and who has courted them, then Huckabee might be virtually unavoidable as VP.