The boys in the backroom?: photoillustration by Adam WeinsteinIn its latest story on Team Romney’s nomination machinations, the Washington Post dropped a minor bombshell: Some scary/funny names of possible members in a President Mitt Romney cabinet.
The far ranging article, “Romney advisers try to lay groundwork for united GOP against Obama,” details how the Romney camp has been working overtime to court Richard Land, a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention and a heavyweight among evangelical conservatives. Land told the paper that Romney’s advisers have been in constant contact. What did they talk about?
Land said he recently told them that Romney could win over recalcitrant conservatives by picking Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) as his vice presidential running mate and previewing a few Cabinet selections: Santorum as attorney general, Gingrich as ambassador to the United Nations and John Bolton as secretary of state.
Rubio’s been bandied about as a veep candidate, though he’s kind of a yawner…when he’s not legislating ladies’ uteruses and keeping bad company, that is. The other members of this Land dream team sound like specters from a liberal’s sweaty Jungian nightmare. (I, for one, am haunted by neoconservative handlebar mustaches.)
Then again, bluster is cheap on the campaign trail. Land—who laments America’s “God-sized problems” (and who gave us a shoutout as an anti-Christian “leftist magazine” in his recent book)—is a culture warrior angling for some added clout in the Republican party. His fantasies don’t necessarily become realities—like when he championed a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants a few years back. So don’t start hoarding birth control and mustache wax quite yet. But don’t be surprised if Romney dangles a few Cabinet spoils before the right, if that’s what it takes.
