Dems' Dream Ticket Dies

By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

"When my kids were smaller, my wife used to wear a T-shirt that said, 'What part of 'no' don't you understand?' I'd like to start wearing that T-shirt myself. No, no and no," said McCain Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I will not leave the Republican Party ... I will not be vice president of the United States under any circumstances," McCain continued emphatically.

This is the point where McCain hopes the speculation stops. But why the Democrats went abuzz over the idea of McCain says more about the modern Democratic Party than about McCain himself.

"The Democrats have been vulnerable and attacked as being weak on defense, liberal, limp wristed, you name it, for our entire generation," said Haynes Johnson, a former Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for The Washington Post and now a professor at the University of Maryland's school of journalism.

"The McCain thing is not going to happen but it actually would be breathtaking for two reasons," Johnson said. "One is that no way Bush could then run against Democrats as being weak, too liberal. It would be a true bipartisan ticket at a time of national crisis," Johnson continued. "Democrats also hunger for it because it would break this election wide open."

McCain is the party pragmatists' first choice. In the year of the Pragmatic Democrat, when Kerry was seen as electable mostly due to his demeanor, experience and heroic war record, it follows suit that the party establishment would want the maverick Republican.

Democrats believe that McCain would virtually assure Kerry's election. Like Kerry, a three-time Purple Heart winner in Vietnam, McCain is a war hero; he survived five years as a prisoner of war.

"The fact that Democrats would want McCain is also partly just because they would get a Republican with an impressive story, but it wouldn't only be the national security side of McCain," said Fred Greenstein, a Princeton University presidential historian. "It also would be the McCain who is a straight shooter, the McCain who called Bush up short when they talked about Kerry as being soft on national security."

The speculation surrounding McCain was a Pandora's Box of his own opening. In March, he said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that "John Kerry is a very close friend of mine," adding, "Obviously, I would entertain it. But I see no scenario, no scenario, no scenario where that would happen."

Democrats and the media immediately, of course, began imagining such a scenario for McCain.

A Kerry-McCain ticket would inevitably alienate some left-leaning Democrats. After all, McCain is not just a Republican in name; he's a self described "a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk."

A choice of McCain might also add momentum to Ralph Nader's candidacy, illustrating his 2000 contention that the difference between the two major parties is negligible.

"If it is a problem for the Democrats that Nader is out there acting like he will not take votes from Kerry, it would be a massive problem for Bush to have McCain out there," Greenstein said. "And that would be both for McCain's heroics and the independent following."

Alas, it is now purely an academic exercise to imagine McCain on the ticket. For Democrats, the vice-presidential decision will hinge on finding a candidate who can win a particular state, or one with national appeal on a charismatic level or one who is strong in the area where Democrats have been weakest since the assassination of John F. Kennedy – national defense.

"For the first time since 1960, the vice president really matters," Johnson said, referring to the former vice president (and then president) who shares his last time. "Ticket balancing doesn't work, but it did in 1960. [Lyndon] Johnson carried Texas and that won Kennedy the election" over Republican Richard Nixon.

Is John Edwards Kerry's Lyndon Johnson? Possibly. But unlike 1960, the Democrats don't need to win the South this year to win the Oval Office. However, one or two Southern states going blue would basically assure a Kerry White House come January 2005.

"Edwards is a very attractive candidate but doesn't strengthen the war posture," Johnson said. "But he does bring a youth and panache that Kerry lacks. Ideally you have both. If they were able to get McCain, who is a very attractive figure personally plus who has a lot of panache, that would be ideal for them."

Absent McCain, the question is, then who? For Kerry and the Democrats, the election could depend on the answer.