Picking Secretary Rice for Vice President sounds good on paper, but it would be a catastrophic mistake for the McCain campaign. Secretary Rice cannot deliver any battleground state or region, and it is not as though Senator McCain lacks credibility on foreign policy. Moreover, picking Rice would alienate the only faction of conservatives that is solidly behind him. True or not, many hawks view Secretary Rice as soft on Iran and blame her for Israel prematurely pulling out of Lebanon last year. McCain’s pick needs to be someone with serious fiscal chops–a person he can point to every time the Democratic nominee quotes him as saying he doesn’t know much about economics. Ideally this candidate could also sure up support with the part of the base that remains suspicious of him, or deliver a state.
