My Take On The Romney Veep-Stakes

With Mitt Romney well on his way to the Republican nomination, the media and pundits have been busily trying to predict who his running mate will be.

At the top of everyone's list is Florida's U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio.  The thinking is that he could help Romney win Florida and help reel in some of the much needed Hispanic votes.  But, to me, Rubio is young with limited experience. What Romney needs more than the Hispanic votes, themselves, is to present a ticket that is stronger and more capable in all aspects than Obama-Biden.

The rest of the people on the so-called short list are almost all persons with domestic, budgetary, and state governance experience.  Basically, all or in part, somewhat weaker copies of Romney himself on an overall basis. But, the job of being President is not just limited to domestic responsibilities; and, an obvious weakness on Romney's part is the fact that he lacks foreign policy experience.  I think the strongest ticket that Romney could present to America is one that is solid in its ability to handle both domestic and foreign policy issues.

In my opinion, that pick would be George W. Bush's former Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. First of all, Rice was extremely popular while Secretary of State; always polling higher than every other top politician in Washington.  She's fairly current on world affairs; having only left her job in 2009 when Obama and Hillary Clinton took office. For that reason, she has personally interacted with most of the existing world leaders.  And, as an obvious bonus, she is both black and a woman; two other areas of known weakness for Romney.  As the former Provost at Stanford, she actually has some administrative experience.  As far as domestic policy and the economy is concerned, she is a Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover institute.  She is also a professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and a director of that university's Global Center for Business and the Economy.

Probably, her greatest weakness as a Republican is her position on abortion; saying in an interview that she is mildly pro-choice.   While she is definitely against late-term abortion and abortion without parental notification, she understands that abortion is the law of the land and she believes the conversation should be shifted away from trying to overturn Roe v. Wade and, instead, aimed at highlighting the psychological impact that a mother goes through when having an abortion. But, I know very well that some would refuse to vote for a ticket with her on it because such  a vote would compromise the religious stand on abortion.  How much of an impact that would be, I just don't know.

Anyway, that's my pick for VP.  And, one has to wonder that, if Romney did pick Condoleeza, would Obama then counter that by dumping Biden and choosing, instead, Hillary Clinton as his running mate.