Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels tells GOPers in Washington to stop "whining.".

David Brooks complains that Republicans "are no longer the party of community and order" (as if they were ever the party of community) and that they "talk more about the market than about society, more about income than quality of life."

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney disses Sarah Palin for making Time's list of 100 most influential people: "[W]as that the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people? I'm not sure. If it's the most beautiful, I understand. We're not real cute." (Actually, Romney is kinda cute--certainly more handsome than influential these days.

On Friday morning, on NPR's Diane Rehm Show, guest-host Susan Page made me--really, really, really made me--and the two other commentators (PR man/syndicated columnist Tony Blankley and Politico's Jeanne Cummings) predict John McCain's running-mate pick. None of us were eager to prognosticate. But Page insisted.

Earlier in the day, I had pondered the conventional-wisdom short-list of McCain's choices: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Bush budget director Rob Portman, and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. At least three of these contenders should be nowhere near McCain's calculations:

Ridge: He favors abortion rights. That could help McCain with independent voters, when the inevitable McCain-wants-to-criminalize-abortion ads start flooding the airwaves in the fall. But does McCain want to be at war with the base of his party from now until election day? (One problem for McCain is that he cannot win without the party's base, and he may not be able to win by catering to it. What a paradox!)

Portman: As the economy slides further into a ravine--and Bush's approval ratings remain in the gutter--does McCain want by his side the man who was in charge of Bush's budget? Portman does hail from the must-win state of Ohio, and he's considered an affable and effective campaigner. But McCain would find it harder to distance himself from Bush's economic policies with one of Bush's key economic appointees on the ticket.

Jindal: As I noted earlier, if McCain opts for this 37-year-old overachiever, he will make exorcism a campaign issue, for Jindal will have to explain his 1994 account of an exorcism in which he participated--and prove his account was true. Also, Jindal's record in Louisiana has been not-so-stellar recently. Senator, once more, can you explain whether you believe that Satanic demons can take possession of an individual and that people like your running-mate can perform amateur exorcisms to drive these spirits away?

So that leaves Pawlenty and Romney. Pawlenty comes from a swing state, but he has no standing on the national stage. "Pawlenty of nothing," one conservative pundit quipped to me recently. As for Romney, he does okay (not great) with the GOP base (the part of which that does not consider Mormonism to be an anti-Christian cult), and he can talk about his business experience at a time when the economy is ailing. One key question is, is McCain still pissed off at Romney over his attacks on McCain during the primary campaign? McCain does have anger issues. (See here for a recent example.)

When pressed for an answer by Page, I went with Romney, noting I was probably wrong. Blankley chose Ridge. And Cummings picked Portman, adding that voters would not necessarily identify him with Bush. But we all stipulated that we had no clue. As for me, I doubt that the veep pick will make much of a difference for McCain's campaign. He (and Barack Obama, too) ought to keep in mind the cardinal rule: first, do no harm. Yet that short-list is full of potential dangers.

I'm Ronald Reagan, and John McCain's not.

That was Mitt Romney's not-so-implicit message, as he announced the suspension of his presidential campaign on Thursday before the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference. In a fiery speech, Romney hammered the point that he's a rock-hard conservative when it comes to all three legs of the great stool of the GOP: social issues, economic issues, and national security issues. At least now he is. He decried "government welfare" as a "threat to our culture." He essentially called Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama surrender-monkeys in the fight against radical jiihadism. He denounced regulations that choke businesses and called for lower taxes. The crowd lapped it up.

Romney knew that in a few hours McCain would appear before the same audience and try to appease those conservative activists who consider McCain an ideological turncoat. (How dare he care about global warming!) Though Romney was departing the race, he seized the moment to present himself as the real thing. Perhaps McCain will eventually be able to reach a detente with some of the conservatives who despise him (even if Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and James Dobson don't sign any peace treaty). Regardless of that, Romney was attempting to position himself as the true leader of the movement.

Which caused me to wonder: maybe Romney doesn't want McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, to win in November.

Look at Reagan In 1976, he challenged President Gerald Ford in the Republican contest and argued that Ford was not sufficiently conservative (mainly on foreign policy matters). It was a close race. By the time of the Republican convention, it was not clear who would be the nominee. Ford edged out Reagan--due to some last-minute strategic missteps committed by the Reagan campaign--and went on to lose the election to Jimmy Carter. Reagan emerged as the conservative champion in the party. Four years later, he roared back, won the nomination, and gained the presidency.

Whether or not McCain loses in November, Romney will remain the heartthrob of many conservative activists. But should McCain fail, Romney could become the de facto opposition leader--that is, if he's not chosen to be McCain's running-mate. And Romney would be able to use those millions of dollars he didn't spend on this campaign to bolster the conservative movement's infrastructure and further endear himself to the rightwing establishment. (Mike Huckabee might develop a Christian right following that sticks with him after the campaign, but his stool will be lopsided.) Romney would be well-positioned for the next campaign.

Republican losers often come back and succeed. Not only did Reagan do it, so did the first George Bush (who lost to Reagan in the 1980 Republican race) and Richard Nixon.

If McCain does end up as president, it will make life messy for conservatives. They will support him on some fronts and (if Democrats are lucky) detest him on others. There likely won't be ideological clarity. And Romney, like others, will have to navigate those shoals. But given McCain's age, that period might last no longer than one term. If Clinton or Obama triumph, Romney will be able to lead the rightwing charge against the culture-destroyer and surrender-chicken in the White House. Won't that be a lot of fun for him?

So Romney may not have to wait so long to have another shot. In 2012, he'll be 65 years old. Reagan was 69 when he reached the White House.

Nothing.

During his victory speech on Tuesday night, John McCain, who beat Mitt Romney in the Florida by 5 points, thanked his supporters and spoke graciously of his rivals. He presented himself as a traditional Republican. He noted that he first was attracted to the "principles and policies" of the Republican Party when he heard of the conservatism of Ronald Reagan "in whispered conversations and tap codes" while he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He called for lower taxes. He denounced activist judges. He said not a word about Iraq. Nothing about ending the war. Nothing about winning the war.

Make of this what you will.

John McCain, the war ain't helping you. That is, all the war advocates who have recently been mouthing happy talk about the Iraq war are not doing McCain any favors. And he can include himself in that group.

Look at the Michigan primary. Mitt Romney finally won a gold medal last night and whooped McCain by 9 points. Half the voters in Michigan said that the economy was the No. 1 issue. Only one-fifth pointed to Iraq. Among those who cited the economy, Romney bested McCain 41 to 29 percent. Of course, Michigan is in a near-depression, and it comes as no surprise that GOP voters there are looking more for an economic savior than a military commander who can keep Iraqi insurgents from coming over here to attack our malls. And during the campaign Romney did his best to pander to Michiganders, promising to bring back the golden age of automobile manufacturing. McCain, though, told 'em to suck it up and get with Plan B (retraining and education for non-automaking jobs). Thus, the candidate of national security was trounced by the candidate of economic miracles.

McCain and his strategists can dismiss the Michigan loss as inevitably due to the specific circumstances of the Michigan economy. But that might be whistling past the shutdown factory. The meta-narrative these days is this: the war is going well, the U.S. economy is rushing toward a recession. It doesn't matter whether this is an accurate depiction of reality. After all, the war in Iraq has hardly turned the corner, and even the recent passage of a de-Baathification law in the Iraqi parliament was not much of a true success. (Almost a half of the body didn't turn up for the vote, and its passage pissed off Sunnis and Shias alike, with many of the former remaining unconvinced this legislation will change much for them.) But if GOP voters believe--or hear repeatedly--that the surge is working, they have less reason to fret about the war, and less reason to feel a need for McCain.

What other issue is McCain known for these days? Maybe pork-busting. But he's never had much of a profile on grand economic matters. Conservatives still hold a grudge against him for not being a passionate tax-cutter. So if the pending--or already-arrived--recession is now the worry of the moment for GOP voters, McCain doesn't meet the demand. Enter Romney, Mr. CEO. The guy who gave us Staples and cheap paper clips. In Michigan, his economy-first message triumphed. Could he do the same elsewhere?

For months, McCain has been proclaiming that the surge is succeeding. And with such pronouncements filling the media, Iraq has become a less salient issue for voters in both parties. McCain might end up a victim of his own success.

DEMS DO NEVADA. It was a rather low-key debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night for the Democratic presidential contenders. They all played nice. They all looked exhausted. Here's my report from MotherJones.com:

What did the umpteenth Democratic presidential debate, held in Nevada on Tuesday night, demonstrate? That Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton each need a nap. The trio looked worn out. Perhaps that was why few punches were thrown. The Iraq war, the politics of race, tears (or near tears)--the Democratic contest had become rather heated in recent days. Clinton, using misleading information, had accused Obama of being a disingenuous hypocrite regarding the war. Obama's camp had seized on a comment Clinton had made to Fox News and assailed her for supposedly dissing Martin Luther King Jr. And Edwards had snidely insinuated Clinton might not be strong enough to be president (after she became emotional at a campaign stop in New Hampshire). It was getting nasty.

But in Las Vegas, there was relative calm. And no one hit the jackpot. Sure, there were a few pokes. Clinton declined to state that Obama and Edwards are prepared to be president. Edwards noted that Clinton and Obama had pocketed campaign contributions from corporate executives. Obama suggested that Clinton was using the specter of a future terrorist attack to scare people into voting for her. Overall, though, the three stuck to their positive scripts. Obama: I can inspire, mobilize, and bring together a divided nation. Clinton: I have the experience to be ready on Day One to solve problems for you and your children. Edwards: I will fight to my last breath for middle-class and low-income Americans. (Clinton did have a Clintonian moment when she acknowledged that she had voted for the anti-consumer bankruptcy bill of 2001 but "was happy that it never became law." In other words, I voted for it but didn't inhale.)

The major clash of the night came over...energy policy....

You can read the rest here.

The Republican debate on Wednesday night--brought to us by CNN and YouTube--prompted me to wonder, is Mitt Romney more of an empty suit than I had previously assumed? He is a presidential candidate with almost nothing interesting to say. Rudy Giuliani does his tough-guy act. Mike Huckabee speaks authentically about faith and conservative values. John McCain is passionate about the surge and about banning torture. What stands out about Romney in terms of his words and ideas? Zilch. Romney can stick to his talking points, especially when assailing Giuliani for not having deported every illegal immigrant from NYC when he was mayor. But he offers no interesting arguments, notions or proposals.

Moreover, at the debate, Romney froze several times when tossed a quasi-tough question. (For a full account of his stumbles, see my report on the debate here.) Shouldn't he be able to adeptly handle queries about the use of torture, the Bible, and his own previous stance on gays and lesbians in the military? (He was all for letting them serve; now, of course, he ain't.) Well, he didn't on Wednesday night.

At the debate, each candidate was allowed to show a so-called YouTube-style video made by his campaign. Romney's offering was by far the most bland of them all. Here's the text:

It's an election like no other. An enemy lurks, waiting to strike. Our Main Street economy is competing with mainland China. Legal versus illegal doesn't seem to matter. Basic values like marriage are suddenly open to debate. For these challenges, ordinary isn't good enough. We need the leader who gets the big stuff done. Take charge, demand results, no excuses. Mitt Romney, the right experience, the right values, the right time.

This is practically a parody of a campaign ad. There's nothing within it that's distinctive. The pitch is merely a series of buzz phrases. You could plug in the name of any other GOP contender and the ad would still work. Vote Romney: The Generic Republican Candidate. I'm tempted to say this is almost insulting to the intelligence of GOP primary voters, but his strategy may be working, for Romney is still in the lead in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. But the more exposure he receives--and the less of the right stuff he displays--the more he could slip in those crucial states and elsewhere. The guy has a face for politics, but that handsome jaw may be made of glass.

Which reminds me: experience. Note the use of the E-word in Romney's ad. This campaign season has seen questions hurled at Barack Obama about his experience, particularly in foreign policy. Why have such queries have not been thrown at Romney? Yes, he did deal with a bunch of foreigners when he ran the Olympics in Salt Lake City, but as governor of Massachusetts he did not develop much of a foreign policy profile. And the manner in which he talks about national security often rings hollow--or wrong. In an earlier debate, he claimed that George W. Bush had no choice in 2003 but to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein had not allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency into Iraq. But Saddam had done so. Wasn't Romney reading the newspapers in 2003? This gaffe received little media attention, but it demonstrated that Romney was misinformed on a critical aspect of the Iraq war. It also demonstrated this: he has the potential to say something really stupid at an important moment. The clock is ticking and the race is on: Romney versus...himself.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG.... To bring you news of the latest installment of "PinkerCorn" from Bloggingheads.tv. It's up and available for your viewing pleasure. In this rematch, Jim Pinkerton and I discuss the Annapolis conference and recent developments (pre-debate) in the GOP and Democratic nomination battles. A slice of the show can be seen at The New York Times site by clicking here.

CORN ON NPR. On Friday, I am scheduled to appear on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show. Check your local listings, or listen to it on the web at 10:00 am, Washington time.

Scheduling note: I won't be blogging on Friday. See you next week.

Who's afraid of Mike Huckabee? Well, apparently Fred Thompson is.

As D-Day in Iowa approaches, anxiety waxes and knives are being sharpened within the campaign HQs of assorted Republican presidential wannabes. Some group in New Hampshire days ago was push-polling (calling potential voters and reminding them that Mitt Romney is a Mormon). The Fred Thompson and John McCain campaigns quickly decried this underhanded move, and the culprit remains a mystery. (Hmmm, were they too quick to denounce the tactic? Then again, why was Rudy Giuliani not as quick as they were to attack these unnamed attackers?) But after expressing dismay at the push-polling, Thompson's campaign on Sunday zapped out not one but two emails kneeing Huckabee in the groin (metaphorically, that is).

Shortly after Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, appeared on Fox News Sunday, Thompson's lieutenants dashed off a press release claiming that Huckabee, a Baptist minister, had misled Fox News's Chris Wallace. A sample:

Huckabee Claim: "We didn't raise [taxes] on nursing home patients. That was a quality assurance fee."

Fact: Fred Thompson can "play up his 100% pro-life voting record and his 0% Planned Parenthood score. Sometimes it's just plain hard to argue with the numbers." (David Brody, "Fred Thompson's Pro-Life Strategy," Christian Broadcasting Network, 6/15/07)

And so on....

Thompson's communications guys were working overtime on the Sabbath, for they also dispatched an email dissing Huckabee and Chuck Norris, the action-movie star. The Huckabee campaign had just released a new ad featuring Norris. One of my Mother Jones colleagues calls the spot "the greatest political advertisement of all time." That might be a slight overstatement. But it is a doozy. (You can see it here.) In the ad, Norris and Huckabee trade off remarks about the other. Huckabee's are supposed to be wry ("my plan to secure the border: two words--Chuck Norris"); Norris plays it straight ("Mike Huckabee is a lifelong hunter who will protect our Second Amendment rights...Mike Huckabee wants to put the I.R.S. out of business").

The ad is on the silly side. But for the Thompson campaign it's as serious as...well, his pathetic poll numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire. Thompson's communications director Todd Harris felt compelled to proclaim:

With his new campaign ad featuring Chuck Norris, Mike Huckabee has confused celebrity endorsement with serious policy. What would Huckabee do to secure America's border against millions of illegal immigrants pouring into our country? According to his ad, "Two words: Chuck Norris."

It's appropriate that Chuck Norris would co-star in an ad with Mike Huckabee, given Huckabee has been Missing in Action" on the issue of illegal immigration his entire career. As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee called supporters of a bill that would forbid voting rights for illegal immigrants "racist" and "bigots." Huckabee's position on immigration is closer to Ted Kennedy than to conservatives.

What a sign that Huckabee, the potential sleeper of the year, is gaining traction: the only movie actor in the race is worried about him--and overreacting. But in the two most recent polls in Iowa, Huckabee placed second (at 24 and 18 percent), while Thompson was either tied for third (at 11 percent) or in fourth (at 10 percent). And in the most recent survey of New Hampshire Republicans, Huckabee was in fifth place (at 6 percent) yet ahead of Thompson in sixth place (5 percent). It appears that Thompson, adopting a NASCAR strategy, believes he has to take out the car in front of him before zooming onward--and that driver is Huckabee.

Mitt Romney also is worried about this accelerating social con. Romney recently slammed Huckabee for having supported a proposal in Arkansas to provide college scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. Huckabee, bless him, fired back, "I guess Mitt Romney would rather keep people out of college so they can keep working on his lawn."

The GOP race is turning into a circular firing squad. There are several in-the-hunt contenders, and the dynamics of the race keep shifting. Remember when a guy named John McCain was the favorite? For a while, the main action seemed to be the mudwrestle between the Giuliani and Romney camps. Now Huckabee is fielding the most hits. Last week, the politerati (myself included) wondered how nasty Barack Obama and John Edwards would get in taking on Hillary Clinton. The answer provided by last Thursday's debate: not as nasty as anticipated. Expect the Republicans to get more down and dirty (and desperate) in the days--and debates--ahead.