McCain!!

[prog]

CBS poll shows that Sen. John McCain would give Kerry's campaign a strong edge over Bush-Cheney Holy crap. It didn't even occur to be that such a bi-partisan ticket is possible. Is there any kind of precedent for this? (Seriously, I'm asking.)

The notion of a bland Democratic candidate (whose strongest suit, the incumbent's increasing unpopularity, is out of his own control) choosing a centrist, straight-spoken Republican as a running mate falls squarely into so-crazy-it-just-might-work territory, and would shatter the caked-on cynicism covering this whole election so far. To my eyes, anyway.

I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up, since everything in this process tends towards the dull and tiring, but it's exciting to ponder.

(props to pseudomanitou for the link)

Comments

[queue.livejournal.com]

What a great picture of McCain! I think if I saw a picture of our current veep like that, I'd assume he had just had a stroke.

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

I don't THINK there'd be anything wrong with this as far as the U.S. Constitution's regulations go. The Democratic Party itself may have some kind of internal regulation that might need to be overturned.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

I think it was the case that, once upon a time, you ran for president, and if you came in first you became president, and if you came in second you became vice-president. Which meant that a lot of presidents had VPs from the opposite party. But I'm not sure.

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

I believe that happened approximately once and led to a new amendment changing the way the Vice President was selected. I can't cite anything at the moment to prove that, though.

[xymotik.livejournal.com]

It was the 12th Amendment, ratified 1804.

[wrog]

I think it was the combination of

1. John Adams (Federalist) having to deal with somewhat hostile Jefferson (DR) as his VP, followed by
2. the fiasco of 1801 where Jefferson and Burr, both from the same party, completely swept the electoral college but managed to get equal numbers of votes and thus had to duel it out in the House of Representatives to figure out which one of them would be President

that convinced everybody that this was a completely stupid way to do things.

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

I consider myself a liberal Democrat and Kerry supporter, and I am strongly opposed to McCain as Kerry's running mate. McCain is a standup guy, for which he gets (and deserves) support from people who don't agree with his policies, but his voting record is solidly conservative at the end of the day. There's a vast difference on policy between Kerry and McCain and it would be difficult for Kerry to make effective use of McCain as his Vice President, especially given McCain's independence.

Although I generally support Kerry's policies, I would like to see him take a stronger liberal stance on some issues than he has. Taking on McCain to be his VP would signal no chance of Kerry governing from a more liberal position and would indicate that he intends to be more conservative.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Policies? I thought we elected leaders based on personality! Certainly that's all the campaigns have been about for as long as I can remember.

Anyway, McCain has categorically refused to be on the Democrat ticket, several times. I don't blame him, really.

[xymotik.livejournal.com]

McCain is only considered a centrist because the Republican Party as a whole has swung so far to the right. He doesn't fit in because he's not a hard-core free-market ideologue nor is he a fundamentalist. The best line from the article? "Republican voters, meanwhile, are more likely than Democrats to view the Senator in a negative light: 16% of them do, compared to just 4% of Democrats and 8% of Independents."

Having said that, it seems like the best we can hope for at the moment is damage-limitation. Sigh. Go Kerry-Whoever.