The Unity-Ticket Mirage

I think the most important point to be made in response to Jonah's suggestion that McCain pick a Democrat as his veep is that crossing party lines to pick a nominee is only really plausible for a nominee who's working from a position of enormous strength, which McCain decidedly isn't. There are two reasons for this: First, because only a strong nominee can afford to absorb the backlash from his base that picking a member of the opposition party would inevitably invite, and second, because only a strong nominee can persuade a prominent member of the opposition party to stake his career on a risky unity ticket. This is why, as I've argued before, a McCain-Lieberman ticket would only make sense in a world where a successfully-prosecuted Iraq War had left the GOP poised to enjoy an FDR-style majority for a few election cycles; it's also why, as one of Jonah's correspondents notes, the ideal time for a Republican to pick a moderate Democrat as his running mate would have been the Reagan '80s, not the post-Bush Oughts. It's not that there aren't any moderate-to-conservative Democrats anymore: In a (very) different world, you could imagine a unity ticket joining McCain with figures ranging from Evan Bayh to Bob Casey, Jr. to (ahem) Jim Webb. It's that none of them have any reason to hitch their fortunes to a fading GOP brand. And the only guy who does, Joe Lieberman, seems unlikely to bring enough post-partisan cred to the ticket to make up for the revolt he would doubtless inspire on the right.

But yes, I know, there's always the dream of Michael Bloomberg ...