Every time one of my more moderate Democratic friends mentions that they could probably vote for John McCain because they think he’s a moderate, I jokingly remind them that a vote for McCain could also be a vote for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. He’s a longshot, but it’s clear that Huckabee is stumping for the VP slot.
Yesterday on Meet the Press, Huckabee said,
“There’s no one I would rather be on a ticket with than John McCain…All during the campaign when I was his rival, not a running mate, there was no one who was more complimentary of him publicly and privately. … I still wanted to win, but if I couldn’t, John McCain was always the guy I would have supported and have now supported. But whether or not I do the best for him, that’s something that only he can decide.”
While McCain’s best hope, of course, is to ignore the Christian Right and run as a centerist, if he does at some point decide he needs someone on the ticket to mobilize evangelicals in November, there’s nobody better out there right now than Huckabee. The Baptist minister won the Iowa caucuses and seven other states before dropping out of the presidential race. As someone who can’t get enough of the squirrel-in-the-popcorn-popper story, I’m rooting for him. The only thing better for political reporting this fall than a McCain/Huckabee ticket would be if McCain picked Ron Paul as his running mate.
