Mike Huckabee as Vice President?

On Wednesday, March 12, Senator John McCain told the press in New Hampshire that he has begun the search to fill the slot for vice president. McCain said he wanted someone that he was in agreement with on issues, someone that could take his place. One of the biggest problems people have with McCain as a candidate is his age. He is 71 and, if elected, will be the oldest president ever elected to the office.

When asked by reporters about former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as a potential running mate, McCain was noncommittal.

But Romney is one of many that have been offered up by pundits, analysts, and experts. Florida governor Charlie Crist, North Carolina senator Richard Burr, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, and even Alaska senator Sarah Palin and newly elected Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal are names that have been tossed in the potential VP pool. But the frontrunner for the position is more likely as not former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

The thing that matters most in the race for President of the United States is winning. If you do not win, you either go back to your other job (or jobs) or retire and write a book about your life (unless you're Al Gore; then you write books, give speeches, win Academy Awards and Nobel Prizes). So the choice for vice president has to be made with the studied care of a strategist. Who can do the most good for the campaign with the added likelihood of enhancing the ticket's chances of getting into the White House?

Mike Huckabee is an extremely likeable guy. Even staunch Democrats like him. When the man gives a speech, he makes people feel comfortable with his folksiness and his calmly accented stories and metaphors. His manner is about as abrasive as cotton, so even when people find themselves disagreeing with the man, they don't seem to be angered by the difference in opinion. And that would be a good thing for the McCain ticket, for the senator from Arizona is noted for being a bit caustic and short at times, his temper known to be seething just below the surface.