Advice to would-be Romney running mates: Run for the hills

Nothing is easier to mock in politics right now than the apparent reluctance of leading Republicans to sign on as Mitt Romney’s second banana. A few weeks ago, Jon Stewart summarized the way that Rob Portman was plugging his Senate colleague Marco Rubio, who in turn was passing the baton to Jeb Bush, with the line, “Doesn’t anyone want the rock in crunch time?”

Since naked ambition is the only bipartisan trait left in politics, however, no one takes these sorts of demurrals seriously. When someone like former primary candidate Tim Pawlenty says “Take my name off the list” for the umpteenth time, everyone assumes that he is merely trying to protect himself from the embarrassment of a high-profile rejection. (In his case, the Iowa Straw Poll was bad enough.)

But what if all these Romney refusniks are actually telling the truth? What if they made a rational calculation and concluded that the upside--sharing the history books with Spiro Agnew, seats at the best international funerals--is not worth the cost if Romney loses in the fall? We could hardly blame them. The modern history of what happens to losing vice presidential nominees is enough to make any politician recoil in horror.