"Un hombre blanco increiblemente aburrido"

POLITICO.com trae hoy un artículo sobre la obsesión de Team Romney por no volver a cometer los errores de McCain, y en él encontramos interesantes pistas sobre cómo afrontan los asesores de Romney la selección del running-mate:

McCain, according to Romney advisers, blew it on all three scores. And of the three, the most conscious effort by Romney’s team to do things differently will be in the V.P. selection process. One Republican official familiar with the campaign’s thinking said it will be designed to produce a pick who is safe and, by design, unexciting – a deliberate anti-Palin. The prized pick, said this official: an “incredibly boring white guy.”

(...) Still, nowhere has the loose McCain style informed the buttoned-down Romney approach than private deliberations over the vice presidential pick.

McCain officials said they ran a traditional V.P. search process for months – long list, short list, extensive vetting – but it broke down at the end when the senator decided he was far enough behind that he had to shake up the race. But a Republican official familiar with the Romney campaign’s thinking says the vice-presidential search will be more rigorous, and likely produce a candidate a lot less flashy than McCain’s running mate, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

“If not [Sen. Rob] Portman [R-Ohio], [former Minnesota governor Tim] Pawlenty, [Indiana governor Mitch] Daniels — some other incredibly boring white guy,” the official said. “If there was a fourth name on the list, it’s [Virginia Gov.] Bob McDonnell.”

One argument for Pawlenty is that he would help the ticket with evangelical Christians who are suspicious of Mormonism.

Other names will be floated but, under the campaign’s current theory of the case, are long shots: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is said by insiders to want it the most and also to annoy some aides with his aggressiveness; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is not being as seriously considered as popularly believed because aides don’t see him as experienced enough or appropriately vetted. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez are also seen as too untested and lacking the national experience that would assure officials at Romney headquarters in Boston that they weren’t walking into another Palin problem.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has a strong vibe with Romney, who is said to like the idea of running with a younger, more exciting conservative. But Ryan would be such a lightning rod for the left that he could violate the most basic requirement for a running mate: Do no harm, a chief reason many Romney aides are less enthusiastic about him than the boss is, people in the campaign said.

Campaign officials have floated the idea of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, now a Fox News and talk-radio host, as a pick who would strengthen Romney’s hold on the base. But Romney does not want to signal weakness. So under current plans, the pick will not be a blatant pander to the base – once again, the opposite approach of 2008.