Who would want to be Romney's running mate? With his recent swoon in the polls, that even Fox News can't ignore,
http://www.foxnews.com/...
it looks like taking the Republican nomination for Vice President might be like signing on as first mate on the Titanic.
I got to wondering about that, and looked up what happened to Vice Presidential nominees in the past, particularly the ones on losing tickets.
Here are the recent losers:
Losing Democrats since 1960
Edmund Muskie, with Hubert Humphrey in 1968.
Sargent Shriver, with George McGovern in 1972.
Walter Mondale (with Jimmy Carter, won in 1976, lost in 1980).
Geraldine Ferraro with Mondale in 1984.
Lloyd Bentsen with Michael Dukakis in 1988.
Joe Lieberman, with Al Gore in 2000.
John Edwards, with John Kerry in 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Losing Republicans since 1960
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., with Richard Nixon in 1960.
William E. Miller, with Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Bob Dole , losing with Gerald Ford in 1976.
Dan Quayle (with George H. W. Bush Senior, won in 1988, lost in 1992).
Jack Kemp with Bob Dole in 1996.
Sarah Palin with John McCain in 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
On the Republican side, since 1856, only two Vice Presidential losers seem to have had any serious career in government afterward. Bob Dole lost with Gerald Ford in 1976 but went on to have a long career in the Senate and got the Presidential nomination in 1996. The other was Earl Warren, a former California governor, who lost with Dewey in 1948. Eisenhower put him on the Supreme Court in the 1950's and he ended up with right wingers wanting to impeach him. And, well, Sarah Palin can still attract a crowd even though she dropped out of being Governor of Alaska fairly soon after losing with McCain.
On the Democratic side, the record goes back to 1828 and wasn't quite as bad. Thomas A. Hendricks lost with Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, but won the Vice Presidency with Grover Cleveland in 1884. Franklin D. Roosevelt lost with James M. Cox in 1920 but got the plum nomination against Herbert Hoover in 1932. Edmund Muskie lost with Hubert Humphrey in 1968 but was front-runner for the 1972 Presidential nomination early in the primaries. Lloyd Bentsen lost with Michael Dukakis in 1988, but continued on a long Senate career and later was Secretary of the Treasury. And then there was Joe Lieberman in 2000 and John Edwards in 2004.
Along with the bleak history of political life after being a Vice-Presidential loser, there may be extra baggage you'd have to accept if you were to climb on the Romney bandwagon. Particularly, do you release your tax returns? Probably not; you'd make Romney look even worse if you did. But then would you release them if you subsequently ran for President? You'd look like a flip-flopper, and a compromiser on principles. I wouldn't be surprised if this were a major reason some of the stronger possible running mates have taken themselves out of the race. The line for begging off suggests itself:
"Gee, Mitt, I was keeping my options open for a run myself, somewhere down the road. I'd expect to release my own tax returns, and I've been careful to keep my finances straightforward enough that the tax returns wouldn't raise eyebrows. I'd be happy to run if we both released the last 12 years of them... Oh, OK then. Good luck."
I'm not sure the Republicans had the talent anywhere to put together a winning team for 2012. But history doesn't show any great reward for being the second string backup on a loser.