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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Bleah, Gingrich is in town here today. At least he's not doing any public events here.

Wait, he is? I missed this; why is he here at all?

[Aqizzar]

Yeah, last night was the beginning of the end as far as the GOP race goes. But of course, Santorum isn't going to drop out yet because he still has races in Pennsylvania and Nebraska coming up which could go well for him. And Gingrich is just in it for the lolz at this point. Plus he may think he still has a chance to ride that Dixie cachet to victory in North Carolina (he won't). Ron Paul will hang around just because Ron Paul.

I don't think it was the beginning of the end so much as the end of the beginning we were all wondering when we'd see.  When the history books are written, they'll probably point to Santorum losing Michigan and Ohio, only by a hair but still losing them, as the signal that the race was really over.  Santorum's well on his way to losing Pennsylvania, and that being a likely possibility is as good a reason as any to write him as closed for good.

Obviously, Obama and Romney are pretty confident in that being the case.

[Lord Dullard]

He was destined to lose, TBH. He's too freaking backwards to stand a reasonable chance, even if some of the crazier right-wingers gave him a bit of an affair with mainstream conservatism.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[RedKing]

Okay, with Romney all but a foregone conclusion at this point, let's turn our attention to the second fiddle. Who is he likely to choose as his running-mate?

The fun thing about being picked as VP is, you don't have to give up your day job if you lose (unless you're also running for re-election which can be tricky). So the guys who sat out the main event like Chris Christie and Jeb Bush are on the table.

FWIW, I think Romney needs someone to his right (to ground the ticket as solidly conservative) not so far that he needs a telescope to find them (i.e. don't expect to see a Romney/Santorum ticket any time in this plane of existence).

Experience is not nearly as crucial a criterion for VP candidate. Look at Dan Quayle, John Edwards, etc.

I have my own pick that I think would be a bold and clever move for the GOP, but I withholding comment because I want to see what other people are thinking first.

[Kilroy the Grand]

I'd vote for Romney if Vermin Supreme was his running mate.

Ponies for everyone.

[Bauglir]

That's not fair. I'd vote Santorum/Vermin Supreme.

[FearfulJesuit]

Dan Quayle? Really?

It'd be like Joe Biden, but turned up to eleven.

[RedKing]

I think it's safe to say there won't be a "compromise" ticket with any of the other candidates as VP. Gingrich might be holding out for the post, but he won't get it. Neither will Perry, Cain, or Bachmann.

Chris Christie is an option, but that'd give you a guy from MA and a guy from NJ. First GOP ticket in ages that didn't have somebody from the South (even if just nominally).

Jeb Bush is more conservative and Southern, but he's got that whole "last name makes you want to scream and run for the exits" thing going on.

Paul Ryan's name has surfaced over and over, but Ryan's lost a lot of cachet since the budget standoff last year. Boehner doesn't want the job, and he's about as popular with the red meat GOP activists as Obama.

@dhokarena: No, no no....I was saying Quayle was an example of a guy with little experience that was still picked as a running mate. Gawd, it'd be loltastic if something posessed Romney to pick Quayle.

[sluissa]

They might pick someone to the right of Romney, but they really need to be careful of another Palin if they go that direction. Alternatively, Romney could go crazynuts and pick someone to the left of him to try to get more of the disillusioned democrat vote. Once the GOP nomination is in his bag, he doesn't really need to pander out to the wing anymore. People will vote for him just because of the R next to his name on the ballot.

[nenjin]

Generally it seems like anyone with a bright political future will refuse the VP nomination. It's a thankless job that most politicians consider a dead end.

So yeah. I'm fairly interested to see who they stick with Romney, because I'm guessing it will be someone so green that they can't reasonably reject a position like that in government. It'll also have to be someone who hasn't come out against Romney.

he doesn't really need to pander out to the wing anymore

I don't know about that. He'll still be fundraising the whole time, so he'll have to continue to pander to core Republican values, and so by extension, pander to the party interests.

[sluissa]

SuperPACs make fundraising, especially for people like Romney a bit of a non-issue.

[Heron TSG]

Well, consider that quite a few presidents were vice presidents previously. It's a job that grants you a little bit of credibility as far as a presidential campaign is considered. That said, I really doubt that Biden will run in 2016.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That said, I really doubt that Biden will run in 2016.

Who the hell is Joe Biden?

[mainiac]

SuperPACs make fundraising, especially for people like Romney a bit of a non-issue.

It changes the game but it hardly makes fundraising a non-issue.  Obama raised three quarter billion dollars last election.  Romney despite all his vaunted big money backers is still a long ways from that.

[RedKing]

Well, it means he has to pander to the corporate interests of the Party, not necessarily the God-guns-and-gays elements of the party. He has an inherent advantage with the corporatists already.

But yeah, he can't pivot too soon back to the middle (and there are signs he's already in mid-pivot) or he risks a voter backlash among the far-right Republicans, especially if a guy like Santorum or Tancredo runs a third-party bid.

There's a fine art to becoming a centrist after having spent months trying to out-conservative the conservatives, and I feel like Romney doesn't have that level of smoothness. Waiting on a "I voted for it beofre I voted against it" moment.

FWIW, I think Gov. Nikki Haley in SC would be an incredibly shrewd choice (even if she's already said she'd turn it down). The primaries have absolutely KILLED the GOP's numbers with women. Putting up a woman for VP stems the bleeding, and enables them to say "Look, we're more progressive than the Dems! We have an ethnic minority female on our ticket, and they just have another old white guy."

As alluded to there, she's an Indian-American (of Punjabi Sikh parentage), and for the GOP she's the best kind of ethnic: the one that can be easily mistaken for white at a casual glance.

She identifies as both Sikh and Methodist (don't ask me how you pull that one off), so the religion thing could be sidestepped (and if the Dems really start to poke at that, it makes them come off poorly for insinuating there's something wrong with religious minorities).

She's relatively young for a major pol (38), physically attractive, a native Southerner, married to a career military man, and is seen as a rising star in the GOP. In a lot of ways, she's everything Mitt Romney isn't, and so enables them to push the ticket as much more inclusive.

But....as I said to start with, she's already on record as saying she'd turn it down. People have a way of changing their mind when the fruit is actually dangled in front of them, but it's an instant hit to her credibility if she takes the job now.

That said, I really doubt that Biden will run in 2016.

Who the hell is Joe Biden?

He's Ed McMahon to Obama's Johnny Carson. Although it just dawned on me, you don't even see them together that often.