bob mcdonnell

[Mr. Morden]

The vaginal ultrasound thing sure doesn't help his case.  That'll probably get a lot of play if he gets picked.

Also, with regard to Palin/Martinez comparisons, I think part of what Palin illustrated is that you don't know what you're going to get when you take a governor whose only experience is on state issues, and throw her onto the national stage with little prep time.  That's why Palin was the first VP pick by either party with zero Washington experience since the 1970s.  That's why first term senator Rubio is "safer" than picking a first term governor.  He's already a US Senator, so he deals with national issues every day.

[Mr. Morden]

The closest Rubio came to a Shermanesque denial was "I'm not going to be the Vice Presidential nominee. The answer is going to be no." which isn't really that Shermanesque a denial.  No more definitive a denial than Clinton's insistence that he wasn't going to run for president in 1992 or Obama's insistence that he wasn't going to run for president in 2008.

It's too early to believe any denials of interest on the vice presidency.  People deny their interest in being veep all the time, and it doesn't mean anything.  We won't know for sure if someone is uninterested until they refuse to be vetted.

[Mr. Morden]

Btw, Nate Silver has a new post on why governors rarely ever get picked for veep:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/for-a-romney-running-mate-dont-bet-on-a-governor/