Last-minute GOP veepstakes buzz: McCain really wants Lieberman

Politico’s Mike Allen reported this morning that McCain has made his VP pick and will notify that person today in advance of tomorrow’s planned rollout rallies in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The short list is thought to include longtime veep frontrunners Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty along with a few, possibly token, mentions of possible female candidates like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

But the hottest, and oddest, rumor in the days leading up to the announcement has stemmed from persistent leaks about how badly McCain himself wants to select the hawkish former Democrat Joe Lieberman, a man who bears a giant scarlet “A” on his chest in the eyes of the Republican Party’s anti-abortion-rights Christian base. Today the Washington Post reports:

“You keep hearing that he really wants Lieberman,” said a Republican source who talks frequently with McCain’s advisers. The source added that McCain “can be stubborn.”

Another senior GOP adviser said picking Lieberman would be a way to say that McCain is a “transformational politician,” but it was unlikely that the benefit of that would offset the angst it would cause among party conservatives.

Republican antiabortion forces have made it known that the outrage that would be felt at next week’s party convention over a Lieberman selection would dwarf any disunity on display at the Democratic gathering in Denver.

CBS adds: “Sources close to the McCain campaign have indicated that Lieberman, an independent Democrat, is very much in the running.”

If it were anyone but McCain in the driver’s seat, the chances of an upside-down political maneuver like this would be practically nil; it discards the entire electoral calculus of the Reagan-Bush era Republican Party. But remember, as WashPost’s anonymous source puts it, that McCain “can be stubborn.” And by stubborn, they mean capricious and politically stupid.

So let’s just call a Lieberman pick unlikely. And given that Romney would also polarize a substantial segment of voters against the ticket, I’m guessing Pawlenty will be the man behind the curtain tomorrow. Today, notes the AP, Pawlenty is “scheduled to play attack dog in Denver.”