the national interest

Romney Wants White Dude for Veep

Republican Presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop at Lawrence University March 30, 2012 in Appleton, Wisconsin. Wisconsin residents will go to the polls on April 3 to vote for their choice for the Republican presidential nominee.
We’re looking for someone who looks safe and boring. Like me. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei have some reporting on Mitt Romney’s plans for his vice-presidential selection. They frame it as Romney having learned from the mistake of the McCain campaign, but I see it as a straightforward case of employment discrimination:

[T]he most conscious effort by Romney’s team to do things differently will be in the V.P. selection process. One Republican official familiar with the campaign’s thinking said it will be designed to produce a pick who is safe and, by design, unexciting – a deliberate anti-Palin. The prized pick, said this official: an “incredibly boring white guy.”

I suppose you could call it affirmative action for white men who have long been denied a chance to hold the second-spot on the GOP ticket, and by “long” I mean “once.”

I suppose you could call it affirmative action for white men who have long been denied a chance to hold the second-spot on the GOP ticket, and by “long” I mean “once.”

The reported front-runners are Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Rob Portman, and Bob McDonnell. Now, it’s quite possible that the report is wrong, and Allen and VandeHei are being fed deliberate misinformation designed to ramp up the surprise factor when Romney picks Marco Rubio. But if their reporting is right, there’s really no way to interpret it other than white guys are considered inherently safe, and brown skin or ladyparts are considered risk factors. Consider this later passage in the piece:

Romney Wants White Dude for Veep