Romney’s VP Pick: Here’s My Bet

Obama has been leading in the polls. Recent polls from CNN and Fox News (which was conducted by one of my UT professors’ polling firm Shaw & Research Co.) put Obama on top by 7 and 9 percentage points respectively, which is above the standard margin of error. Gallup poll conducted Friday put both campaigns at a 46-46 tie. Rasmussen tracking provided Romney with a two point advantage. Mr. Obama has also been leading in most of the swing states. Romney needs a good convention, a good vice presidential pick, and good debates to carry him over the top: it is an uphill battle for sure.

As for the VP speculation, the Romney campaign has been trumping up its VP selection by pestering supporters with emails asking them to donate for a chance to find out the identity of Romney’s running mate and rolling out a new Apple app as a tool for supporters to be the first to find out about the pick. In a recent CNN/ORC poll of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters, Marco Rubio came out on top of the list, with Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey close behind tied for second. Ok look, as much as I would like for Paul Ryan to be Romney’s running mate, I do not think that is very likely purely out of strategic concerns. Nate Silver, a respected statistician turned pollster, puts Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) at a mere 2.8% as a deciding state to carry Romney over, while he pegs Ohio (18 electoral votes) at 34% decisive to a Romney win. Wisconsin already has Scott Walker, the governor who took on the unions and survived a liberal, special-interests campaign to unseat him. Walker is also speaking at the Republican National Convention to trump up support. In addition, the President has been leading in Wisconsin for weeks now. These realities alone deprive Paul Ryan of a chance at VP, not to mention the Left has successfully painted Ryan as a radical affront on the women and the poor through his budget plans. Ryan himself is not vastly popular in his home state with 30 some percent approval. If Ryan is picked, more negative ads will flood the air to bring down Ryan’s credentials and paint him as killer-of-Medicare-as-we-know-it, which is a liberal way of deflecting from the real issue: entitlement reform. I am a huge fan of Paul Ryan. I think he is one of the few Republicans in Congress who had the balls to offer a bold plan to reign in the country’s fiscal binge. But in a tight election year, Ryan may be too “bold” of a pick. Ryan will be red meat for the “gotcha” mainstream media’s dog-and-pony show, a good pick for the Party’s fiscal hawks, but bad for the electability of a Republican presidential candidate in a tough election year. 

Bobby Jindal, Republican governor from Louisiana, has been a name thrown around as well. From a strategic standpoint, Jindal makes absolutely no sense for Romney’s electoral gains. Jindal has a phenomenal resume that arguably outshines Romney. Why do you want to make a sequel of Batman and focus solely on Robin (McCain/Palin)? The campaign would be stupid to pick Jindal as the VP ticket.  

Other names include Bob McConnell, Rob Portman, and Marco Rubio. According to Nate Silver, Rubio has a net positive impact of 2.8% in his home state, while Portman has 1.1%. Bob McConnell has a 3.5%, but Virginia has only 13 electoral votes, 15 less than Florida. Rubio is predicted to increase Florida’s win chance by 15%. In the same blog, Silver however predicts that Portman and McConnell will have the most likely impact (about two percentage points) on winning the election. That’s how the numbers look today. Here are some qualitative considerations.

McConnell is a popular governor in Virginia, a state that went to a Democratic President in 2008 for the first time since LBJ. Virginia is an important state for Obama. He has campaigned and fundraised in Virginia numerous times this year. The state has a relatively low unemployment rate at about 6%. Even though southern Virginia bordering North Carolina has higher jobless rate, that area of state, being rural, small town America will most likely go to Romney anyways. The key urban center in Northern Virginia, where an economic boom, similar to that of Austin, has brought in diverse, highly-skilled workers to IT and government contract jobs. Places like Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax County, Prince William County, Loundon County are some of the wealthiest counties coupled with lowest jobless rates in the country. Bob McConnell carried all three of these wealthy counties in 2009. With McConnell as surrogate, Romney can tap into these counties and steal a win in Virginia. With a Real Clear Politics polling average between 3-8/10, the country rejects Obamacare, 49.9%-42.2%, a 7.7 percentage point lead in favor of repealing. There is only one candidate who is campaigning to repeal Obamacare in this race. Team Obama has a tough sell to make in these rich counties where people are perfectly fine with their health care. Therefore, it is not overly optimistic for me to think Romney has a good chance with Virginia.

In Florida, Senator Marco Rubio has the political profile and the conservative credentials to not only solidify Romney’s support in Florida, a key swing state, but he is vastly popular among the Tea Party brand of the party and the so-called conservative purists. And let’s face it, a rising star in the new Hispanic right? Jackpot. If Florida’s 29 electoral votes go toward Romney, and if he takes back Wisconsin and Virginia, states that went to Obama in 2008, he doesn’t need Ohio to win the election. However, admittedly, the scenario I proposed is rather rosy because Wisconsin and Virginia have been trending Democratic. In turns of resource allocation, Ohio (18 electoral votes) is still THE strategy for the Romney campaign, and he needs to do anything to shore up support to carry 50%+1 in Ohio, even if that means picking Rob Portman as his VP…or so some strategists would suggest. But a plurality, 42% of voters polled in Ohio, either don’t know or haven’t heard of Portman. Actually a PPP poll concludes 55% Ohioans don’t know Portman in his own state! What use is that? While it is true that 16 out of 22 vice presidential picks since 1968 came from home states already in candidates’ favor, often those are states with little electoral gains such as Connecticut, Delaware, Wyoming, etc., (Bill Turque, Washington Post), Rubio is from a state that hails 29 valuable electoral votes, the same state that had riveted the nation in 2000 with butterfly ballots and Supreme Court drama.

Nate Silver predicts that Rob Portman will boost Romney’s election win potential by 2 points, while Bob McConnell will carry it over by 1 point. To the non-political watchers, in a current world of party polarization and divided America, that can be significant enough to carry Romney to the top on Election Day.  

Of course, the media and the pundits love a good horse-race. To them, this is the NFL draft of politics. Couple weeks back, network television was hyping up Condoleeza Rice as Romney’s potential VP, to all serious Republicans, we knew that was a desperate call from media running out of guesses, which is a good sign for the Romney campaign – keep them guessing. The media has been focusing on Tim Pawlenty (uh no jose), Rob Portman, and Paul Ryan in the last week. 

Republicans need to stop fooling ourselves and put up a show for the mainstream media. Barack Obama is arguably one of the best political communicators, orators, rhetoricians, BSers in the history of the United States. He has some of the brightest political operatives working for his campaign. And despite his recent habitual lament of how the Republicans are beating him in the fundraising game, his campaign is still ahead of the game having raised some $550 million, compared to Romney’s $395 million. To put that in perspective, Obama campaign has a fundraising advantage of $155 million that could easily employ more than 860,000 Kenyans for a year based on the country’s per capita annual income of $1,800. Republicans should not and cannot underestimate the Chicago political machine that is behind the Obama campaign.

On an interview with Chuck Todd of NBC, Romney said that he wants a VP who has “a vision for the country, that, that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country.” Rob Portman doesn’t seem to fit the description. Senator Rubio is a young conservative firebrand who will ignite the conservatives, tear down the stereotype of Republican old “white male” club, and provide political hope for fiscally conservative, anti-communist, Catholic, pro-family Latino voters. Going the Florida route in an electoral plan via Rubio seems like the best VP choice for me for Romney and the Republican Party. For an owner of a 200-year-old haunted house in Ohio, Portman is too spooky of a pick for the Republican Party. I understand the rationale for a “boring white guy” as running mate; but come on, I can’t be the only guy who thinks a Romney-Portman might be too boring that people may not even turn out to vote?

CNN just broke the news: Romney campaign will be announcing his VP pick in Norfolk, Virginia tomorrow morning (Quick! All network reporters, get on the first plane to Norfolk #BostonAirport backed up on tarmac) 

Here’s my relatively rosy Electoral Map. We will see where political tides take up in the next three months. Wisconsin was a big call for me, but let’s wait and see.  

Here is the more detailed version about Romney when he was in high school in the 1960s http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_print.html

This morning I was on the treadmill downstairs while watching CNN (my headphones broke – couldn’t listen to my iPod), the headline was that Romney apologized for his high school pranks in the olden days in the 1960s in Michigan. Washington Post exposed the story a couple of days ago saying that Romney and his buddies picked on a fellow classmate who was assumed to be gay – and voila! that’s all you need for the media to spin it 360 around the topic of the week: gay rights.

The story goes on to expose Romney as this New England boarding school brat, who was the son of the governor, well known for practical jokes and whatnot. The story hinted about inequality, privilege, and racist institutions. If you look at this story on balance, I’d say that 95% is about Romney’s life at Cranbrook, and 5% on this guy who frankly in my belief is a mere pawn in this round of media attacks against Romney. You know what? I am sure Mitt Romney messed around in high school and did stupid things… just like the rest of us! What surprises me is to what length this story goes to portray Romney as a gregarious womanizer (ok for his age then, I’ll tone it down a little – “chick magnet”) and prankster not that much unlike how the liberal media has treated George W. Bush and John McCain in the past. I do not argue that these folks were well-off and fortunate in their schoolings – they were; but to attack Romney in the story under the guise of lamentation for a Cranbrook gay alum IS “mean-spirited.”

The media has done it again – twice in a week – in pandering to the President, scrutinizing the Republicans – making them sound anti-gay. This kind of media and journalistic practice – from a news source that I personally had great respect for – is despicable and disappointing.  I can not fathom any other motives besides an attempt to further polarize the American people forcing the political middle to diverge into respective ideological camps. Those allegedly Democratic-leaning former classmates of Romney’s claim that “politics in no way colored their recollection.” But come on? How often do coincidence actually exist in American politics? Wow, the Post could not have found a better time to release THIS story?!

Journalistic bias aside, I think the larger issue here is making a big deal out of nothing! It does not require much for a reasonable person to piece this string of thoughts together: all-male elite boarding school, 1960s counterculture, expulsion from smoking cigarette, [and my personal favorites…] Romney’s involvement in Glee Club and Pep Club in order for one to understand that Romney and his buddies were still very much immature boys in school in a highly structured environment. If we measure our political leaders by what they have done in their adolescent years, we might as well as forfeit our right to vote for the President of the United States and opt to consider the next All-American Homecoming King. What’s more to come? “Gay student loses in a bid to become homecoming king: a 21st century revisit of the institutional exclusion of gays in high school?” Please. What else’s new? 

Romney apologizes for high school prank

Today President Obama came out and affirmed his position in backing gay marriage, which earned much accolade throughout my Facebook wall from my peers. While I appreciate the president for standing up in principle for the LBGT community, his action is so politically motivated that I find it frankly insulting that he is orchestrating this issue when it is politically convenient for him. It must be nice that he coincidentally has come to term with himself and finally “evolved” on this issue in an election year! It is so rich that a Democratic president is using this issue as a political wedge to gain electoral support – a political tactic used by many rightwing Republicans back in late 1980s and most of 1990s. In a year when some sensible Republicans are trying to have big conversations on issues that have significant ramifications to the future generations of this country i.e. jobs, economy, energy, tax reform,entitlement reform, etc., the Democrats are trying to use a wedge issue to divide the American public to gain slim margin at the poll. It is certainly not a coincidence that one out of six bundlers for the Obama campaign happens to be gay, or that 65% of young people (age 18-29) support the President. The President seems to be capitalizing on the speculative buzz that a Romney campaign advisor had recently quit due to his sexual orientation – or worse, that the Romney campaign may have fired Mr. Grenell because he happens to be gay and supports gay marriage, and the much publicized North Carolina amendment to ban gay marriage. I shall think highly of my president, as I shall like to believe that he is first and foremost an American, then a Democrat, but the president’s attempt to place politics ahead of his true beliefs shows a deficiency in his character. Why else did he leave the LGBT community hanging on this issue for the last four years? 

I have personally struggled with this issue for years. I think marriage is a complex social institution that has many historical and religious roots, while at the same time, it makes sense on a civil liberty basis to allow gays to be married. It appears lacking to me for some to argue against the notion that gay couples can be loving and capable of raising a family, considering how many inept heterosexual parents who neglect and abuse children every day. I also do not buy the argument that a someone would choose to have a loving relationship and marry a person of the same sex, as a consequence to allowing gays to marry, if he or she is heterosexual by nature.  I would love to explore this topic in college sometime if given the chance. However, I think for the President of the United States to pedal behind his VP in affirming gay marriage today, just a day after the North Carolina amendment banning gay marriage – while it makes political sense from a campaign perspective – is disgustingly insensitive. I do not doubt Mr. Obama’s true stance on gay marriage, but I find it offensive that he only offers “hope” when it is politically convenient for him to do so. I am even more perturbed by the wide scale fawning over this president – as evident from Facebook – who is demagoguing the American people for political advantage! We should call out politicians, Left and Right, who place campaigns and politics ahead of personal values.

Obama backs gay marriage

Barack and Michelle Obama sit down to have dinner with two couples on the campaign trail in what Obama campaign calls “Dinner with Barack”

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

We often forget that candidates are people too with their own stories. I love bio ads. They tell something about someone that we can all draw from and relate to. They often romanticize political campaigns to better reflect the human aspect of the people running.  Amidst the brutal day-to-day politics and mudslinging, it is nice to sit back and learn something new about the candidates.

Both parties use a standard set of talking points – some may call extreme rhetorics- to bolster their policy stances and attack each other. But peel back the political facade, we get a nice snapshot of who they are as people, even if these are simply political media pieces ran by both campaigns. Being president is tough. People have been criticizing Obama left and right. This is an election year that could change the tone of debate for years to come in America. A few questions I have been thinking lately: what exactly are our criteria for choosing the president of the most powerful country in the world? What do we look for in a national leader? What kind of values do we want them to bear and carry forth on our behalves? Those are questions that can be answered but difficult to apply. To some, politics is hopeless, so a candidate’s character and personal values matter more. While others apply stringent measures against candidates as if they are highly dehumanized robots who have to perform in a certain way. Some would say those moments when we truly feel connected to a candidate is when we know who we are voting for. I don’t have an answer to how and why we vote the way we do – though political science has a few theories for that. But I do challenge you to ponder on this topic before you go to the poll in November. Though for now, I would like to put a human spin on this campaign and appreciate both candidates for who they are as people. 

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)