So who might be Ann Romney's pick for Mitt's VP running-mate?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/06/who-might-be-ann-romney-vp-pick

Version 1 of 2.

At some point during the Romney Fourth of July festivities at one of their Downton Abbeys, which included feebly trying to define his penal-tax problem, and jet-skiing fully clothed, Mitt and Ann Romney found some time to give yet another out-of-touchy-feely interview – this time, out of the Fox hole and with CBS news.

And in this interview, Ann Romney was in the driver's seat. First, she announced the entire Obama campaign strategy was to "Kill Romney", and that it's all part of a plan to portray her husband "in a light that is just completely wrong … they don't' get him at all."

Then, when pressed about what exactly said strategy is, she claimed they are saying stuff like, "He's not as approachable as I am or something like that."

Um, note to Ann: that big Obama plan to make him look like a gold medalist in the 1% Olympics is flawlessly executed by Mitt himself – every time he dons a pair of his Lady Wranglers and trots out to tell us things like –

"Banks aren't bad people, they are scared to death … feeling what you are feeling."

Really? Bloated and bitter? … Who knew?

No, Mrs Romney, I don't need an Obama smear campaign to convince me your misunderstood George Bailey isn't "approachable". He has done that all by his lonesome.

But the big news Ann broke during that interview was when the couple was asked about putting a woman on the ticket as Romney's running-mate.

"We've been looking at that and I love that option as well."

We? Really! … Imagine the reaction if that health food commie Michelle Obama had said that sentence. I guarantee there would have been a rightwing press assault that involved excessive use of the word "uppity".

But Ann is very excited about this idea. Because Mitt talks to women. Well, sort of. Here is what she said on Fox News last spring:

"Mitt Romney is a person that admires women and listens to them, and I am grateful that he listens to me and listens to what I am telling him, as well, about what women are facing right now – and he's listening and he cares."

So, he listens to Ann talk about what Ann talks to women about what they are facing. Or something.

And just what are the women Ann talks to facing? What color dressage booties best showcase the horse prancing?

OK, that sounds cynical. Maybe, if Mitt chooses a woman as his running-mate, he will listen to her when she tells him about what women are facing right now. Of course, there are few GOP women to put on the ticket who are household names.

Sarah Palin, who the media defined as the quintessential model of what a GOP woman is, has made a mockery of the political process: instead of working at becoming well-versed in policy, she cashed in on her political capital behaving like a fame truffle pig, sniffing out anyplace she could put herself in the limelight.

Then, who are these other GOP women being eyeballed by Ann and Mitt?

Former presidential nopeful Michele Bachmann won't confirm or deny she is being vetted, but I would put her somewhere on the long list between Sandra Fluke and me.

And the Romneys were seen parading around on the Fourth of July with long-shot New Hampshire freshman Senator Kelly Ayotte, whose bona fides include being the darling of the NRA and a woman of the people. The people who own corporations.

Now, Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, is talked about more realistically, but she has jaw-dropping views on what is realistic. Here is her assessment of what matters to American women:

"Women don't care about contraception; they care about jobs and the economy and raising their families and all those other things …"

After that statement, Haley should be laughed off the list because: a) she actually said, "Women don't care about contraception"; and b) aside from "see A", if you are separating the economy from access to birth control, you should be sent to political Siberia. And all the other Siberias.

But you can't have a list of GOP vice-presidential candidates without having one from the business world. So why not former eBay CEO Meg Whitman?

Put aside the small detail that even dumping $140m of her own money into a bid for California governor failed, because voters saw her career and political ideas as dovetailed – both being based on stuff Americans don't want anymore. No one will remember that small political setback.

The alluring thing about Whitman is the devotion both she and Mitt have had to creating jobs in other countries. In fact, if Ann and Mitt did choose outsourcer-ess Meg Whitman, they could potentially send so many jobs overseas that Mitt and Meg could wind up being the only two people left in America with actual jobs.

So, Ann and Mitt do have a few GOP women to choose from. And the good news is, none of them would require spending thousands of dollars on political coaching to explain to them why there isn't a West Korea.

The bad news is, well, they are Republicans, pushing Republican ideals.