<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Between now and the conventions (with a brief time out for Olympics) all anyone in Washington will be talking about is who might occupy the second slot on the national tickets. This parlor game even has its own name, the &amp;quot;Veepstakes,&amp;quot; which I find annoying in the extreme. It seems to me the strategy for Barack Obama is pretty simple. Play. It. Safe. For John McCain, the stakes are more complicated, since there are two competing interests. As a candidate, he needs to shore up the conservative base, bring in someone younger than he is, and maybe play with the electoral math a little bit. That why Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty makes sense, as does former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman and Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor. Now you&amp;#x27;ll notice something all those choices have in common. They are all white men. Which is where the other goal comes in&amp;amp;#8212;and it&amp;#x27;s the party&amp;#x27;s goal, not McCain&amp;#x27;s. Does the GOP really want to be the party of middle-age (or baby-boomer) white guys? After the Democrats have gained unprecedented attention for fielding a woman and an African-American, it can&amp;#x27;t be too appetizing to realize that the Republican offering is likely to be another variation on the same thing we&amp;#x27;ve been served up for hundreds of years. I&amp;#x27;m going to give the McCain campaign credit for understanding this dilemma, and for realizing that being in the middle-aged-white-guy business is not a growth industry. They may still choose one of the usual suspects, deciding that short-term urgencies trump long-term symbolism. But (and there&amp;#x27;s no more refined way to say this) I believe that symbolism will come around to bite them in the ass. Do you think McCain might shake it up, or is he going to play it safe with Portman, Pawlenty, or Cantor? &amp;amp;#8212;Rebecca"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/glamocracy/2008/08/to-veep-or-not-to-veep>