Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has batted down talk of him taking a spot on the GOP presidential ticket for 2012, but he did do a little tea leaf reading Friday on next year’s election.
While McDonnell did not say whether Donald Trump is a credible candidate for president for the Republican party in 2012, the governor did say on MSNBC that The Donald has created some “straight talk” on business, jobs, taxes and spending.
“I think we’e going to have a lot of good candidates that’ll be out there next year,” McDonnell said. “I think most of them are going to be former governors or current governors that know how to make tough decisions and be straight with the people and that’s who [I think] our nominee ultimately will be.”
That would leave Trump out, but certainly leaves a lot of options open: Mitt Romney? Mike Huckabee? Sarah Palin? Bobby Jindal, for whom McDonnell recently helped raise some cash?
Or perhaps Tim Pawlenty, who recently dined with McDonnell in Richmond?
Whoever the Republicans choose, they’ll undoubtedly be honing in on Virginia as a key swing state, especially with a potential Senate match-up between Tim Kaine and George Allen looming. President Obama carried the state in 2008, but McDonnell led a GOP sweep of the top three statewide offices in 2009, and Republicans picked up three Congressional seats in the state in the 2010 midterms.
