Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire senator
Age
Education: B.A., Pennsylvania State University, 1990; J.D., Villanova, 1993
Elected Office: New Hampshire attorney general, 2004-2009; U.S. senator, 2011-present
Professional Career: Attorney
Religion: Catholic
Marital Status: Married to Joe Daley
Children: Katherine and Jacob
Strengths:
- Ayotte is the sole female in Romney’s pool of top-tier veep possibilities, and could potentially help him erase the gender gap he faces against incumbent President Barack Obama. The latest NBC News /WSJ poll found Obama leading Romney among women by 13 points, 52 percent to 39 percent.
- She’s young, telegenic, and conservative.
- An early backer of Romney (she endorsed him in Nov. 2011), Ayotte has regularly campaigned for, and with, the former Massachusetts governor. Her most recent campaign appearance with Romney took place on July 4 in Wolfeboro, N.H.
- She hails from a key battleground state that Obama won by nearly 10 points in 2008. That said, a recent NBC-Marist poll shows that adding Ayotte to the GOP ticket doesn’t really increase Romney’s poll standing in the Granite State.
Weaknesses:
- Ayotte has been a U.S. senator for less than two years, which – fair or not – could draw comparisons to Sarah Palin, a conservative, female politician who served in major statewide office for less than two years before joining a GOP presidential ticket.
- If former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney selected Ayotte (from neighboring New Hampshire), he wouldn’t gain much geographical diversity. Then again, a ticket consisting of southerners Bill Clinton (from Arkansas) and Al Gore (from Tennessee) won the White House – twice.
Chris Christie, New Jersey governor
Age: 49
Education: B.A., University of Delaware, 1984; J.D., Seton Hall, 1987
Elected Office: Member of the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders, 1997; New Jersey governor, 2010-present
Professional Career: Lawyer; attorney for the District of New Jersey, 2002-2008
Religion: Catholic
Marital Status: Married to Mary Pat Foster
Children: Andrew, Sarah, Patrick, and Bridget
Strengths:
- He is the “bold” pick – a firebrand, who doesn’t shirk from battle. That demeanor fires up the GOP base, which loves a fight and wants someone to take it to Obama.
- He balances out Romney’s somewhat careful, somewhat bland demeanor.
- He’s seen as a problem solver – someone willing to deliver tough medicine, especially to public workers, in order to balance a budget. That would appeal to those who believe debt and deficits are top issues in 2012.
- Pushed to diversify N.J.’s state Supreme Court, he nominated an openly gay African-American and a Korean-born prosecutor. Both were blocked by Democrats. This could help deflate the perception of a Republican party largely in favor of white men at the helm.
Weaknesses:
- Though Christie’s moderate policy views (on things like gun control and immigration) might appeal to independents, his demeanor might not – he’s brashly gone after public workers, a sector that’s struggling.
- The most obvious thing about Christie is his weight. There would be legitimate health issues raised about his readiness to be president and the rigors that come with the job.
- Romney is looking for someone whose main objective isn’t their own career – he needs someone soley devoted to getting him elected. Christie, with his larger-than-life personality, could overshadow Romney.
- The New York Times suggested that Christie’s late arrival to Romney fundraiser might have created a negative impression with the presumptive nominee’s team.
- His stance on gay marriage – vowing to veto it and then calling for a voter referendum – might hurt him with independents. Support for gay marriage has increasingly grown more popular.
- After he canceled the largest infrastructure project in the country (a new train tunnel across the Hudson River), a congressional investigation found he “exaggerated when he declared that unforeseen costs to the state were forcing him to cancel” it, The New York Times reported.
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor
Age: 41
Education: B.A. 1991, Brown University; M. Lit, 1994, New College at the University of Oxford
Elected Office: Governor, 2007-present; U.S. representative, 2004-2007
Professional Career: Health and Human Services assistant secretary, 2001-2003; president of the University of Louisiana Health System, 1999-2001; executive director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicine, 1998-1999; Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, 1996-1998
Religion: Catholic
Marital Status: Married to Supriya Jolly
Children: Selia Elizabeth, Shaun Robert, and Slade Ryan
Strengths:
- Jindal checks many boxes – he’s conservative, a two-term governor, smart (he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford), and policy whiz (in his 20s, he helped overhaul Louisiana’s public health system). As conservative writer Philip Klein put it, “He’s more exciting than Portman and more experienced than Rubio.”
- Despite that experience, Jindal – at age 41 – is still a young rising star in the Republican Party.
- And as an Indian-American, Jindal would bring diversity to the GOP presidential ticket.
Weaknesses:
- Unlike some other potential VP picks (like Ayotte, Pawlenty, and Portman) Jindal endorsed Rick Perry – a fellow governor from the South – during the GOP primaries.
- Jindal’s first performance on the national stage – giving the Republican response to President Obama’s first address to Congress – fell flat. His surprising aw-shucks, Howdy-Doody delivery was widely panned, even likened to Kenneth from NBC’s “30 Rock.”
- In March 2011, The New York Times reported that some corporations seeking business with Louisiana’s state government (like AT&T, Marathon Oil, and Northup Grumman) donated a significant amount of money to the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana’s Children, a charity established by Jindal’s wife. This revelation came out after Jindal worked to tighten Louisiana’s ethic rules and lessen the influence of special interests.
- Despite his insistence to construct sand berms to contain the BP oil spill – and his sharp criticism of the Obama administration during environmental disaster – a presidential commission concluded that Jindal “wasted $220 million building controversial sand berms that captured a ‘minuscule amount’ of oil and proved to be ‘underwhelmingly effective’ and ‘overwhelmingly expensive,’” USA Today reported.
- In 2004, Jindal wrote about witnessing an “exorcism” that he claimed cured a friend of cancer.
