THE principal reason why former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has climbed to the top of Sen. John McCain‘s wish list for vice president is the possibil ity that he could bring Michigan’s 17 electoral votes to the Republicans for the first time since 1988.
Private polls show Romney could make all the difference in Michigan. A McCain-Romney ticket carries the state by a moderately comfortable margin. With any other running mate, McCain loses Michigan.
George Romney, Mitt’s father, was a Detroit auto executive and the popular three-term governor of Michigan.
The younger Romney won the 2008 primary in Michigan over McCain, who had won there in 2000 against George W. Bush.
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REPORTS of a decline in the popularity at home of Louisiana’s first-year Gov. Bobby Jindal over his mishandling of more pay for state legislators have been greatly exaggerated. His long-shot chances for the GOP vice-presidential nomination remain.
A private Louisiana survey of 800 registered voters taken July 6-8 by The Polling Company shows 60 percent favorable (with 39 percent strongly favorable) and 18 percent unfavorable for Jindal. Those numbers contradict Jindal’s reported precipitous decline after the 37-year- old governor reversed himself twice on the legislative pay issue but ended up opposing it.
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SEN. Barack Obama is employing his fundraising prowess to raise money not only for his presidential campaign but also for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, seeking a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
Recipients of Obama’s summer mailing include many lobbyists who are called “switch hitters” in political parlance – contributors to lawmakers of both parties who seek to open Capitol Hill doors to them on a bipartisan basis.
A footnote: While Democrats have a good shot at picking up four more Senate seats to put their majority at 55 to 45, collecting the 60 seats needed to break filibusters without Republican help seems out of reach. “We must have a deadlock-proof Democratic majority,” Obama said in his letter.
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ALTHOUGH former Sen. Phil Gramm‘s resignation as national co-chairman of McCain for President was considered to be essential by the campaign, he resigned on his own without being asked.
As this column reported a week ago, Gramm apologized to his old friend and political ally McCain for embarrassing his candidacy, and McCain told him not to worry about it. Shortly thereafter, Gramm resigned rather than become an attack target for having called America “a nation of whiners” whose recession is “mental.”
The same strategists who felt Gramm had to go also consider his departure a major loss. McCain valued Gramm’s economic and political advice.
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REP. Paul Kanjorski, a 71-year-old, 12-term congressman from a solidly Democratic Wilkes-Barre, Pa., district, may be the only incumbent House Democrat to lose in what shapes up as a disastrous 2008 for the Republicans.
Kanjorski is running behind Lou Barletta, the GOP Mayor of Hazleton, Pa., who has made a national reputation as a foe of illegal immigration. Kanjorski has a big money advantage and is waging a substantial TV campaign, while Barletta hasn’t yet been on television.