Will McCain pick Lieberman?

Could McCain/Lieberman actually happen?

I’ve been kicking around that possibility for a while. Conventional wisdom says McCain has to pick a strong conservative to hang onto the conservative core, but there’s another option available to him: instead of winning with a right-center coalition, he could try for right-center-left. A coalition that doesn’t go quite as far in either direction as the traditional winning formula.

Jennifer Rubin has a long article about this at Pajamas Media. She lists several pros and cons. The pros:

• Balancing the ticket and solidifying McCain’s image as a bipartisan maverick;
  
• Attracting Democrat voters;
  
• Putting Connecticut in play;
  
• Offsetting McCain’s “temper” with Lieberman’s level persona.

She doesn’t list this among the pros, but she later mentions Lieberman’s hawkish foreign policy positions.

The cons revolve mainly around the succession, in the case of McCain’s death while in office. He’d basically be handing the presidency to a Democrat, along with the major differences in opinion (mainly on abortion) and potential future court appointments.

How would it all play out? I have no idea. It would be interesting to watch – it would be the most intriguing National Convention, I think, since the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

It would sure cause an uproar.

In the end, though, McCain’s job, as the candidate, is to win. If he thinks this is a winning formula, I bet he goes for it.

By the way, I voted for Lieberman and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano (major guess - I know nothing about her - I just think B.O. needs a female Veep) in the PJMedia Veepstakes contest.