Redstate

Posted at 8:48pm on Feb. 19, 2008 Hutchison as McCain's veep pick?

Another name is floated.

By Mark Kilmer

Vice President Kay Bailey Hutchison. The possibility of John McCain selecting the Texas Senator as his running mate is floating out there somewhere.

When I studied political science in school, we were taught the veep candidates were chosen because they could balance a ticket ideologically or geographically, or because they could carry a prized State. Those are old-school rules, but I assume they are still in vogue (if we add a gravitas balance rule). Other factors like age, sex, race, rural v. urban, experience with Congress, issue strengths, criminal record, etc., are also factors.

The ideological balance rule might be important here, if John McCain wants to convince those who believe he is not conservative enough by choosing someone whom they believe is conservative enough, but it seems that a candidate's conservatism is now a matter of gut feeling and opinion than anything objective. The American Conservative Union has a popular rating system in which they measure a candidates "conservatism" by how often the Senator (for our purposes) agrees with the ACU on specific issues legislation chosen by the ACU. In his career, John McCain has agreed with the ACU on ACU-selected issues 82.3% of the time. Kay Bailey Hutchison has agreed with the ACU on ACU-selected issues 90.4% of the time. (For sake of reference, Arlen Specter has voted with the ACU on their selected issues only 44.7% of the time in his career. Hillary, just nine-percent.) So by the ACU's criteria, Hutchison does not balance McCain ideologically, with both leaning heavily conservative.

It gets more fun. Read On…

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