Sean Trende is Senior Elections Analyst for RealClearPolitics. Here he takes a dispassionate walk through the GOP vice presidential candidate selection process.
Trende looks at 12 possible candidates and runs them against ten hurdles they need to clear. The candidate who clears the most hurdles is the most likely pick.
The winner of Trende's analysis is Tim Pawlenty, who passes nine of the ten screens. T-Paw's downside is that he is boring, solid but boring.
On the other hand, Pawlenty will be difficult to criticize. What concerns me is that "solid but boring" is how I'd describe the whole Romney campaign.
Ironically, the person who brings excitement to the Romney campaign is Barack Obama. The more we see and hear Obama the more we want to vote for somebody else. Romney is that "somebody else."
I swear Romney's campaign staff have concluded their job is to irritate as few people as possible, leaving the irritant-in-chief job to POTUS. So maybe boring T-Paw is a good fit.
The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny thinks Pawlenty has a good chance, see Zeleny's write-up on Pawlenty here.
