The Republican Vice-Presidential Spectulation Thread.

[Mr. Morden]

Does Romney really want to double down on Ryan's budget priorities by picking him as veep, or would he rather create some distance?  If he doesn't pick Ryan, he can say that he thinks Ryan is making an important contribution to the deficit debate, but that he (Romney) would find a way to balance the budget that doesn't necessarily involve all the same politically risky spending cuts.  Whereas if he picks Ryan, then he's pretty much stuck with Ryan-ism.

[Mr. Morden]

Moderators, it would probably be a good idea to sticky this thread until the RNC Convention in late August.

I don't know.  Romney's VP selection is going to be a hot topic here for the next four months.  People are going to want to talk about it enough, that I'm not sure it makes sense to confine discussion to one thread.

Once there are actual leaks from the Romney campaign and we have something to go on other than speculation though, then it would probably make sense to have a "VP rumors" thread like this one from four years ago:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=81522.0

But it'll probably be some time before we're ready for that.

[Mr. Morden]

Portman is a solid candidate that fits well with the image Romney is trying to project, so he makes the most sense, along with McDonnell.

In the unlikely event that McDonnell's picked, expect this stuff to resurface in a big way:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/29/AR2009082902434.html

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Not to mention this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/06/AR2010040604416.html

[Mr. Morden]

Romney advisor and former NH Gov. John Sununu suggests that there are "about 19 or 20" names being looked at in the VP search at the moment:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/30/sununu-19-or-20-names-in-the-vp-bowl/

Anyone want to guess who all of them are?