I know the SP choice has been hashed through but I am still trying to reverse engineer this. So I decided to see who else might meet some of the apparent criteria, if the criteria indeed are:
-Governor, to toss around that "executive" experience label
-Woman, to go after the Hillary crowd
-Popular, since being popular must mean you're effectively serving your constituents, right?
-But maybe not too well known, to seem "outside" of D.C.
-Republican, faithful to some set of republican ideals*
*Which set is yet to be determined by opinion polls
This little exercise left an intriguing comparison to Governor Palin.
I ruled out Christine Todd Whitman (probably upset too many Washington R's in the EPA), Rell for East Coast bias (against).
But left is one of the longest serving women governors across both parties at 6 years. She has been elected 2 times, has been in politics for 28 years at the local and state level, is fiscally conservative, got her state back into surplus income, is said to enjoy 70% popularity rating, and has even tangled with those pesky environmentalists. She was also a mayor, and would be fresh to the American public seeing as she hails from Hawaii. I'd think this would be an intriguing choice for the Republicans.
Yep, McCain could have most of the supposed storylines of a Palin - outsider, tough cookie, self-made, principled, woman.... maybe some of the same critiques would apply (such as no expertise in foreign policy). But in the experience department, Lingle has Palin beat by a country mile. And for all this she had the honor of serving up the Palin bio at the RNC. Hmm.
I recognize from the current controlling elements of the part, choosing her as a running mate would be problematic.
She's Jewish. Probably the biggest no-go for the evangelical crowd. Though McCain was reported barely a step away from choosing a Jewish independent instead, but they strong-armed him out of that one.
She's from a Democratic leaning small population state, and centrist herself.
She's divorced, and has no cute family/kids to trot around.
She is not not a former beauty pageant winner.
Her state does not have immense natural resources to "drill, drill, drill."
But this reinforces my belief that the Republican party is only interested in what a small percentage of Americans think. The gamble is in how big that small percentage is. Won't be enough come November...