A Cup(le) of Joes for VP?

After taking a bit of the summer off, we are back to point out where things are headed.

VP announcements coming up. Could be any of about a half dozen on both sides. Strategically, I think the best choices for the candidates are Mitt Romney for McCain and Tim Kaine for Obama. However, it rarely breaks that way. That's why my money is on a couple of Joes.

Joe Biden has been mentioned a lot lately as Obama's VP choice. That usually means it won't happen, but in this case, I think it might. Biden gives a bit more experience and foreign affairs weight to the ticket, but that won't add too much to the actual election results. I think they work well together and complement one another and that seems to be what Obama is most interested in. I personally like Evan Bayh as the VP choice. If Clinton-Gore was nicknamed "Double Bubba", what would this Illinois-Indiana pairing be called, "Double I"? (not a lot of good nicknames for midwesterners).

On the Republican side, the word McCain has tried to push hard the last few months is 'maverick'. Tough to go more maverick than to select someone from (ostensibly) the other aisle as your VP. Joe Lieberman is a risky choice, but could give McCain the rare situation where a VP actually makes a difference. He wouldn't carry his home state of Conneticut, but he would stand a very good chance of helping McCain battle for the moderates and lock down Florida.

Two-thirds of voters are already set in who they will vote for in November. Another 15-20% are leaning heavily toward one or the other. The remaining 15-20% of voters are where the action is and even among those, only the ones in about 10 states have a chance to change the outcome. In every one of these cases, the state will go to those who convince the moderates/independents who is most capable of leading the country with an even and reliable hand.

Whatever the final choices are, we will know in a few days.