Choices at the cookout
We are told John McCain's blood pressure - I assume this is when his famous temper is not raised - is a perfectly respectable 134 over 84. But his good cholesterol is 42 - below the recommended 60. He's had skin cancer - which we already knew - but nothing appears imminently to threaten the life of the man who, if he were elected in November, would be the oldest first-term president in American history.
All of this completely misses the point of course that it's not what he's got that concerns people - it's what he might get in the next four or eight years. The polls consistently suggest that John McCain's age is a handicap - it worries people. It need not be fatal to his presidential chances but the issue has to be managed - it cannot be dismissed. Which is why a barbecue in the gorgeous red rock setting of Sedona, Arizona is causing much interest this weekend - the cookout is at John McCain's home, and among the guests are three men who are being talked of as vice-presidential candidates: Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Massachusetts Governor and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
It has a slight air of those weekends they used to run in Britain for prospective senior civil servants to make sure that a brilliant mind was allied to an ability to hold a knife and fork properly. So if Charlie Crist is a closet vegan or Bobby Jindal cannot hold a plate and talk at the same time, or if Mitt Romney's just so unbearably unctuous that McCain wants to kill him - this is the weekend their vice-presidential chances evaporate.
Incidentally Crist looks to me to be a bit too clean-cut for McCain's tastes, Jindal is a 36-year-old Indian American whizz kid but is would surely look like an adopted son - giving the ticket an oddness that the Republicans might care to avoid.
That leaves Romney. He knows about the economy, indeed he supported it single-handed with his personal expenditure during his presidential bid, and he appeals to many on the right of the party - he is handsome and youngish. BUT McCain and he do not appear to like each other - in fact rather the opposite. Does that matter?
This weekend could be important - my sense is that if McCain and Romney look up at the cloudless Arizona sky and think big thoughts, they might just decide to try to make a go of it. Perhaps Romney will do the washing up...
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