I don’t actually think Tim Pawlenty is a terrible VP candidate for Romney. Not great, but not terrible. Pawlenty has a narrative, for what that’s worth, but he does have a few other things: reasonable credentials for the job, friendship with the Mittster, and (most importantly) no national power base. The latter having a base is problematic in a VP because it gives him (or her) leverage over the top of the ticket, especially if the VP is more liked by the party than the presidential candidate. Palin was an obvious example of this, in that she effectively hijacked the campaign and turned it into what she wanted it to be–some twisted form of demented Andy Kaufman-esque performance art–entirely because she captured Republicans’ imaginations in a way that McCain couldn’t. Biden is the opposite, someone who has some fans but not much of a power base on his own, and who thus has no choice but to be a team player. Both of Romney’s announced choices hew far more to a Biden-like model. Pols like Chris Christie and Marco Rubio have their followings but Pawlenty doesn’t, which is perhaps why Christie and Rubio have not yet been mentioned as top Romney choices. Sure, Pawlenty’s as much a stuffed shirt as can be, but so have most vice presidents over the past half century, and only one has had to take office after a president’s death in that time. And Pawlenty will certainly not deliver many votes, though he probably wouldn’t take away many either. It should play out like an even more boring version of John Edwards’s 2004 VP berth, I suppose.

What’s interesting about the news that Pawlenty and Rob Portman are being actively considered is that it crystallizes a theme in Romney’s campaign, that theme being a Midwest obsession. I hardly expect a candidate to start just throwing states out of consideration (at least, not one who still has some of his marbles), but the man has been boasting about winning Wisconsin and Michigan a lot more than about winning New Mexico and Colorado, at least so far as I can tell. Pawlenty and Portman are, of course, Midwesterners. The attention being paid to this region is interesting and likely smart–Romney’s Mormonism may or may not cause some evangelical Christians to stay home or vote third party rather than vote for a heretic, but that effect is going to be mitigated in the South because of overwhelming Republican dominance, and in the Northeast and West because of fewer evangelicals in these regions. The Midwest, though, could be troublesome for Mitt. Going for a VP candidate with Midwestern appeal is smart, though Portman and Pawlenty are basically empty vessels who engender no loyalty and provoke no excitement. The only person who probably could move votes for Romney in the Midwest would, ironically, be a Southerner: Mike Huckabee, who combines far-right religiosity with a pleasant personality. This is the scenario Democrats should be afraid of, because it fills in so many of Romney’s gaps. But the free market fundies basically hate him because he raised taxes a few times, so this selection would require Romney to stand up just a little bit to his base for the relatively heterodox Arkansan. You know I don’t see that as being very likely.