Election Night HQ

On Thursday, May 29, The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder offered some detailed thoughts on how Senator McCain could improve his likelihood of prevailing in November’s general election in “John McCain… Predicament.” Here are my thoughts on some of Ambinder’s ideas:

The solution: appoint Tom Ridge to the ticket…

Don’t panic. McCain’s not in a predicament. Barack Obama faces a tough electoral college map…

A game-changer. Pledge to serve for only one term. Appoint your veep pick early. Do something creative with public financing. Propose some new policy that takes your allies and your opponents by surprise. Challenge Obama to weekly debates.

I had some assorted and sundry thoughts on a couple of Marc’s ideas:

1) Tom Ridge as a VP pick.

As with all VPs, there is an upside and a downside. The upside would be a presumed marginal improvement of McCain’s odds of winning in Pennsylvania, a state which Obama must probably carry to win nationally - its 21 electoral votes would be difficult to replace.

The downside would be that Ridge’s selection would violate three different principles of traditional selection -

a) distancing from unpopular members of your own party;

b) DC insider/DC outsider,

c) young/old.

1) Although Ridge is a wildly popular, former two-term governor of Pennsylvania, he is most commonly associated (at the national level) with his service as the first Homeland Security Secretary - and thus a link to George W. Bush, from whom McCain must distance himself as much as possible.

2) Ridge is a heroic, decorated Vietnam veteran who served in Congress and in DC for a good while - just like McCain.

Like McCain, he was also a member of the House - McCain had two terms there before being elected to the Senate in 1986.) Ridge hasn’t been in Congress since 1994, but his stint as Homeland Security chief makes him look like another DC, security-credentialed type - something that McCain, who has been in Congress for a quarter-of-a-century, would prefer not to reinforce.

3) There’s also the age issue. Ridge is 62 years old and will turn 63, ironically, on August 27, right before the GOP convention (h/t Wikipedia) in Minnesota. Although still nearly a decade younger than McCain, a 63-year-old VP candidate might not send the right message, as it would give Jay Leno’s writers some more material.

But let’s look at the pluses:

Ridge would be young enough to serve as president if McCain were incapacitated, but has sufficiently strong gravitas and ability to serve as a great safety choice, if he were to enter the Oval Office. It would dispel many concerns about McCain’s health, if he had a solid backup like Ridge.

Moreover, he would be younger than McCain - but not SO much younger, as to make McCain look really old in comparison.

In terms of tipping Pennsylvania-

Ridge’s presence certainly couldn’t hurt. Moreover, Ridge’s old House district is based in and around Erie, a Democratic city but one which backed him by a huge margin when he ran for governor twice in the 1990s. Having a veep who could help in Great Lakes, Rust Belt cities such as Erie. It’s not likely that Northwest Pennsylvania could provide enough of a margin to tip the state overall, though.

Rewarding Ridge for loyalty would also be a strong message that McCain remembers his friends and allies. Ridge served as honorary national co-chair for McCain and stuck with him during the nadir of the campaign’s implosion and collapse in the summer and fall of 2007.

He’s also conducted himself on the national stage for a very long time, and is thus unlikely to commit the sort of gaffe(s) that might blow the campaign off-message, a la Dan Quayle.

Looking at some of Marc’s other ideas in Options 5 and 6:

I agree on Marc’s advice: “Don’t panic.” There are still 159 days to go. (The time to panic, if there was one, was back in the fall and summer of last year.) It doesn’t mean that the McCain team shouldn’t be concerned with the national climate for any Republican running (one look at those House elections makes that very clear). Or about Obama’s huge edge in money AND organization, due to the campaign’s own prodigious fundraising.

As for some of the risky strategies in Option 6:

Obviously, “doing something creative with public financing” could apply to a wide variety of ideas. Certainly, the best thing that McCain could do, would be to try to hold Obama to the public-money pledge he made last year.

Pledging to serve only one term is dicier. I don’t think it would make sense, unless McCain has already privately determined to do precisely that (in other words, if he only wants to serve one term, anyhow, he might as well take political credit for a “Cincinnatus-at-the-plow” strategy of voluntarily renouncing power.)

Appointing the Veep early - I don’t know about this, as the veepstakes speculation does give McCain some free media that he can use, particularly so due to the Democratic endgame that has taken so long to resolve (and remains unresolved).

Challenging Obama to weekly debates would be a great idea, which I think carries NO downside and tons of upside. Obama’s huge money advantage could be offset somewhat, by the bonanza of free media that weekly debates could provide. Also, McCain loves doing unscripted, risky stuff. He gets burned on this, occasionally, such as the now-infamous 100-years-in-Iraq quote), but it plays very much to his strengths.

Thoughts are welcome.

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