Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling became the recent subject of political drama when he exercised the tie-breaking vote to organize the State Senate. Could Gov. Bob McDonnell become the subject of the same story at the national level next year?
Connect the dots:
1. Mitt Romney is almost certainly going to become the Republican nominee for President. Indeed he now has a 21-point lead in South Carolina and a 19-point lead nationwide. Romney’s virtual inevitability was one of the reasons that we gave him an early endorsement.
2. Romney stated last summer (in a Bearing Drift exclusive) that Bob McDonnell is on his short list to be his running mate.
3. Stuart Rothenberg, one of the country’s premier political analysts/handicappers, projected on Friday that if an election were held today between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, Romney would have enough electoral votes to win without counting any of the toss-up states.
4. Rothenberg also projects that the Republicans are favored to pick up two Senate seats currently held by Democrats (ND and NE). The Democrats are not favored to pick up any Republican seats (although two Republican seats and three Democrats seats are listed as toss-ups).
5. If the five Senate seats listed by Rothenberg as toss-ups remain in the incumbent party’s hands, the Senate would be evenly divided 50-50.
6. If Romney were to pick McDonnell as his running mate and they were to win the election, Vice President McDonnell would hold the tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate.
I’m not saying this will happen. I do believe that McDonnell has a good shot at being picked as Romney’s running-mate and that Romney-McDonnell would stand a very good chance of winning the election. However, Stu Rothenberg would be the first to point out that his projections are based on the state of affairs as they exist today and that a lot can and will change between now and November. I hope we pick up one or two of the Democrat toss-up seats (including Jim Webb’s seat here in Virginia) and hold on to the two Republican toss-up seats (MA and NV), which would give us an outright majority.
Nevertheless, if the stars align, Bob McDonnell could find himself in Bill Bolling’s shoes, but on the national stage, in just a few months. In the immortal words of Judy Tenuta, “It could happen….”
