“I can’t think of anything that’s brighter, that’s more positive for the future of America than creating this environment where people know they can get up every day, go to work, have a job and take care of family.”
--Rick Perry
We wrote that Rick Perry’s run for president is handicapped by his being from the South, the region where Republicans are already strongest. I wish to seemingly compound Perry’s problem by endorsing Florida’s Marco Rubio as Perry’s running mate. A Southwest-South team to run against the Midwest-Northeast Obama-Biden team, base against base.
Doesn’t seem to make sense. Sean Theriault, a University of Texas political science professor, says that Rick Perry "speaks the Tea Party language." And Marco Rubio was the (winning) Tea Party candidate for Florida senator. Loading the ticket with two Southern Tea Party conservatives hardly seems the way to appeal to the non-Southern independents who will decide next year’s presidential contest. As Theriault concludes, "I think the Republican nomination for [Perry] would be much easier than the general election."
Of course, the reason for Perry-Rubio isn’t that Rubio is from the South or from Florida, even though Florida is a state Republicans must carry. Of course, it’s that Rubio is Hispanic, and would be in position to become America’s first Hispanic president. Of course, Rubio would help boost the Hispanic GOP vote up to at least the 40% share Bush-Cheney carried in 2004. Of course, winning Hispanic votes cuts painfully into the Democratic base vote Obama is counting on, a base that we earlier documented.
In 2004, Hispanic votes helped Bush-Cheney carry Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, heavily Hispanic states in addition to Florida the GOP lost to Obama in 2008. A Perry-Rubio ticket would certainly aim to recapture those Hispanic-influenced states.
Also, there are two states outside the South and West that went to Obama in 2008 that Perry-Rubio would likely carry next year. They are Indiana, where Obama’s approval rating in June was already down to 42%, and New Hampshire, where it had dropped even lower, to 40%.
If Perry-Rubio carried every Southern and Southwestern state, Alaska, all the interior West and Great Plains states including Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico that Bush-Cheney carried in 2004, plus Indiana and New Hampshire, the ticket would have enough electoral votes to prevail in 2012 without having to win in a single other Pacific Coast, Midwestern, or Northeastern state of any size (hit to enlarge map below):
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