Is Tom Ridge a ruse?

As regular Stumper readers will recognize, I've lately been a bit, shall we say, boosterish on the whole idea of John McCain picking the pro-choice former Pennsylvania governor as his running mate. Last Thursday, I reacted to McCain's statement that Ridge's abortion stance wouldn't "necessarily rule [him] out" with a long post on why "Ridge looks increasingly possible." The following day, I responded to conservative outrage by saying "I suspect that McCain really wants Ridge on his team, and may even believe that the centrist strength of a McCain-Ridge ticket would more than offset any losses on the right." By Monday, I was claiming that Ridge's assurance that he would "echo" McCain's beliefs as veep and the simultaneous reports that "the McCain campaign has been calling key state GOP officials around the country... and sounding them out about the consequences of a pro-choice VP pick" signaled that Team McCain "may be more willing to take the plunge than the naysayers have anticipated." And yesterday I flat out predicted that McCain would pick Ridge as his partner.

Could my breathless, junkie-ish, uninformed speculation have been wrong?. According to FOX News's Carl Cameron and Time's Mark Halperin, a handful of GOP sources--including a "strategist" and  "Republican National Committee officials"--are now telling reporters that "the presumptive GOP nominee is no longer considering former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge." Which is, of course, what cooler heads were saying all along--i.e., that McCain would never risk depressing Republican base turnout in an effort to regain some of his maverick cred, especially at the risk of turning the Republican convention into an ugly cage match. As conventional wisdom, that always made perfect sense. But no one seemed to be able to explain why McCain and Co. were running the idea by Republican activists and inflaming evangelical passions if they never intended to go with Ridge--at least not to my satisfaction.

That's not to say the chattering classes didn't try. Some pundits claimed that the pro-choice episode was an elaborately stage-managed charade meant to show swing voters that McCain remains an independent-minded iconoclast. Unfortunately, this theory ignored the fact that such a charade--which involves raising the possibility of a pro-choice veep just to inspire conservative outage before ultimately settling on a pro-lifer--would create the impression that McCain had (yet again?) bowed to the far right instead of following his own "maverick" instincts. As theater, it would, in other words, make him look weak, not strong--further emphasizing for moderates how far he's fallen since 2000. And the second major hypothesis--that McCain was using the episode to show the religious right how much its input matters to him--is simply laughable. There are far better ways to boost the evangelical ego than giving them the impression that you're soft on abortion.

So why am I suddenly willing to entertain the idea that my Ridgemania was a bit misguided? Because someone--namely, John Heilemann of New York magazine--has finally conjured up a theory that makes some sense. According to Heilemann, McCain probably felt pressured to make a bold pick earlier this summer, when he was trailing Obama by six to eight points in the polls; now that the race is essentially tied--thanks to gains among the Republican base and with Evangelicals in particular--a bold pick looks foolishly risky. What this means, writes Heilemann, is that "McCain and his people [may be] engaged in a bit of elaborate gamesmanship designed to make Evangelicals more grateful than they otherwise might be for the selection" of "a running mate who, despite being pro-life, the religious right has some qualms about." His name? Mitt Romney. Of course, this is still pure speculation. (Do we even need to include that disclaimer anymore?) But it does have the added benefit of explaining why the McCain machine has suddenly started spreading rumors about Joe Lieberman--a "longshot" who would, in our opinion, "bring little to the ticket." If you think social conservatives will be grateful not to see a pro-choice Republican as veep, the thinking goes, just imagine how they'll react to the absence of a pro-choice Democrat.

With that in mind, it's worth remembering that Romney would make a pretty good running mate--assuming that McCain and Co. can sell the Mormon pol as a concession to evangelicals rather than an affront. As we've already written, Mitt is a proven vote-getter who would "help dispel doubts about the managerial and economic acumen of his partner, a career legislator"; b) "could very well boost his boss's bid in the increasingly purple swing state of Michigan, where his father was governor and the Romney brand is strong"; c) "could also help close the massive fundraising gap between McCain and Barack Obama" thanks to his "proven skill at soliciting donations and a personal fortune of $250 million"; and d) "would probably do the most of all the potential picks to excite dispirited, ground-level Republicans." On June 30--pre-Ridgemania--I even concluded "that Romney is the man to watch." If Heilemann's theory is right--and I certainly think it's possible--he may be again.

At the very least, Team McCain has deftly used the pro-choice "trial balloons" to accomplish an important goal: "inserting itself into the media narrative at times when the assumption that Obama was going to own a week." As MSNBC's First Readers rightly note, "with Obama’s VP selection coming up... the focus is supposed to be ALL on Obama. Yet instead, it's become a true split-screen story now that McCain's camp is purportedly considering Lieberman or Ridge for the No. 2 slot." Exhibit A: yours truly.

Those sneaky bastards.