McCain Thinks About a Veep
Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, on Friday is scheduled to meet with two Republican governors who have been prominently mentioned as potential running mates, according to Republicans familiar with McCain’s plan.
The two governors, Charlie Crist, of Florida, and Bobby Jindal, of Louisiana, have both accepted invitations to meet with McCain at his home in Arizona, according to Republican familiars with the decision. One Republican said that Mitt Romney, a former rival of McCain for the presidential nomination wasalso expected to visit him this weekend. Romney’s advisers declined to comment.
McCain, after a week of campaigning, is heading home on Friday for three days without a public schedule. His campaign declined to comment on the meetings.
“We don’t talk about the V.P. selection process,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser.
Still, the names of McCain’s visitors and the timing — coming three weeks after the Arizona senator told reporters that he had a list of 20 potential running mates — strongly suggested that he was moving into an intensified phase in his search for a vice presidential candidate.
Jindal is the best pick, in my view - his only drawback being the brief time he’s been governor of Louisiana, but given that the Democrats’ guy hasn’t got the requisite experience to be dog catcher, that might not be a high hurdle to overcome. Jindal would bring youth (I believe he’s 36 years old), ardent Catholicism, ethnic diversity (he’s the son of Indian immigrants), policy expertise (he’s a bit of a wonk on that) and a vision of the GOP future. Romney and Crist would also be fine picks, but Jindal is the man of the moment, I believe.
UPDATE: A sample of Jindal:
When I first learned you had invited me to come to the Press Club, I was excited at the prospect of being your biggest newsmaker this week.
Then, on Monday morning, I turned on the TV and saw Reverend Wright standing right here in this pulpit. I mean podium.
I’m a little disappointed the cable channels aren’t broadcasting live again this morning. Where are satellite trucks?
I have to tell you, I will never be as colorful or interesting as Reverend Wright. So if that’s what you came to see, I suggest you get another cup of coffee. In fact, I am less interesting and less colorful than any Louisiana governor you have ever met. I told my staff the very first day I was sworn in that was one of my goals.
Our state has had its share of colorful, quotable, entertaining politicians. In fact, in many elections it seemed that was the only criteria to get elected in Louisiana. You may remember our former Governor Edwin Edwards’ slogan….. “Laissez les bon temps Roulez.” Let the good times roll.
It made for great copy and funny sound bites.
But the problem was that the good times did NOT roll. At least not for everyone. The good times rolled for the people in power in our government, but they did not roll for most people in our state. “Who you know” became far more important than “what you know.”
Last year, during the campaign, I put the challenge to our citizens to roll all of that back. I went to every city, every parish, every wide spot in the road and said “we CAN change, we MUST change, we WILL change.”
And our people responded. They gave us an historic victory on the first ballot…
…with our resources…from agriculture to transportation to petroleum…we can be at the center of innovation and commerce in this country again.
If you have a solution to the impending problems with the world’s food supply? Come to Louisiana, where the growing cycle lasts most of the year.
If you have a way to stretch our domestic oil supply and decrease our dependence on foreign oil? Come to Louisiana, where one third of the nation’s oil and gas comes in off our coasts.
If you have a product to export to the nation and the world, come to Louisiana, where we have five of America’s largest ports, and three of the nation’s major railroads.
Louisiana has always been perfectly situated to be the capital of American innovation…if only Government would get out of the way.
And we are doing just that, right before your eyes.
Our first task was ethics – we now have a predictable playing field for outside investors. You won’t get beat by a rigged game. After that, we moved to dramatically alter our tax code.
In a second special session in March, we ELIMINATED anti-business taxes on business utilities, new equipment and debt.
We sped up the elimination of the tax on business investment – meaning Louisiana is no longer one of only THREE states in the country that taxes manufacturing machinery and equipment.
We accelerated the elimination of the tax on capital investment – meaning Louisiana is no longer one of the ONLY states in the country that taxes business debt.
We completely eliminated the “penny” tax on business utilities.
And – we re-authorized Louisiana’s New Market Tax Credits to encourage further investment in our state, and especially those areas that are still working to rebuild from the storms of 2005.
We also did something government too rarely does…we used a one-time surplus to make one-time expenditures that strengthen our economy. Thanks to the price of oil and the pace of reconstruction, our state budget is actually doing pretty well.
More sober governors might have created big new programs…setting a higher baseline for spending that might not be sustainable once revenues take a dip.
We did just the opposite.
We invested hundreds of millions of dollars in economic development… on priorities like roads, bridges, ports, and coastal restoration.
For a conservative, it doesn’t get any better than this…
26 comments May 21st, 2008
