Kerry's Veep Search Using Polls?

ABCNEWS.com

Perhaps so. The winner, according to ABC, was John McCain. A Kerry-McCain ticket beat Bush-Cheney by 12-15 points, resulting in a Reaganesque electoral college landslide.

No wonder we've been hearing so much about McCain as a potential veep. A 12-15 point margin is worth floating a few baloons over...

Regardless, that's not going to happen. The only person that's said No more than McCain to being Kerry's veep is Hillary Clinton. So enough already.

(One thing more: The constant speculation has forced McCain to very publicly show his true colors. This is something that can only be a good thing. Anyone enamored of McCain as a Democratic running mate should check out his basic positions - he is not one of us.)

Two statements in this article got me to chuckling, though:

When told about the polling, Republicans said it indicated Kerry was inconsistent in what he says he's looking for in a running mate.

"If true, this is glaring example of Kerry being for and against picking the best person for the job," said one Bush adviser.

Ignore the flip-flop spin: that seems to be required of any Republican talking about Kerry these days. It's the idea that polling wouldn't pick the best running mate.

Kerry's criteria are a person "qualified to be President and someone (he) can get along with." Only Kerry knows with whom he can get along, but who better to establish a person's qualifications to be President than the consensus of the American people? That's what polling potential veep candidates would determine - who the public views as "qualified" to be President. The more qualified the candidate, the higher the approval rating of the ticket.

Republicans slamming Kerry for using polling in this situation are insulting the American public's ability to decide for themselves who's qualified to be president.

Also:

The adviser went on to contrast Kerry's selection process with Bush's decision to choose Dick Cheney as his running mate for the 2000 election. "President Bush picked the best man for the job with zero political calculation or polling," he said.

Zero political calculation?

**pause while bolo wipes spewed margarita off of his iMac screen**

Bush's process for choosing Cheney was to appoint Cheney the head of his veep selecting process, remember? In fine Halliburton style, Cheney conducted a few interviews and then hightailed it to Wyoming to register as a voter there and thus sidestep the Constitutional block of two people from the same state being President and Vice President.

A calculated political move, probably whispered into Bush's ear by Karl Rove himself. Are these guys fooling anyone but themselves on this?