What If John McCain Picks a Democrat for a Veep?

I was thinking about this last night, and I really wonder what effect it would have on the voting population if John McCain picked a Blue Dog Democrat for a Vice President.

There are plenty of Democrats who are not far left liberal morons. When you look at the Blue Dog Coalition, you see a focus on fiscal conservatism that you can’t find very often on the Republican side. John McCain’s big thing is fiscal conservatism, so it wouldn’t be outrageous to think that he could pick from this group to be his second.

For example, when you read what the Blue Dogs put out in press releases, it isn’t too different from what I write about on the blog and talk about on the podcast:

The Blue Dogs pointed to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) recent budget and economic outlook, as well as the current state of the economy, in calling on Congress to maintain its commitment to fiscal responsibility and accountability over the coming year. The CBO’s dismal economic forecast indicates that for 2008 alone the deficit is already $56 billion greater than the final deficit for 2007, a number which does not include the costs of a stimulus package or additional funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Taking these likely costs into account, the 2008 deficit could exceed $400 billion.

“By the time President Bush leaves office, he will have added $4 trillion to the national debt, leaving our children and grandchildren to pick up the tab for eight years of irresponsible fiscal policies,” said Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications. “It is not surprising that this budget continues the President’s legacy of unrestrained spending and unmanageable debt. As Blue Dogs, we will continue to do everything in our power to restore fiscal discipline to the federal government and reverse the reckless policies of the past.”

There are quite a few of these folks to choose from, including some with name recognition outside of politics, like Heath Shuler. (For Andrew Riley’s sake, he used to play pro football.) Quite a few members are from southern states, where McCain didn’t do so hot in the primaries and there are others from swing states like Ohio.

So, what happens to the voting population if McCain reaches across the aisle and chooses a Democrat for a running mate? How will the conservatives react? The moderates? The independents? Do you see this as being a good idea, or one that would backfire? With McCain being a middle of the road guy with a rep for cooperating with the Dems, I don’t think it is really that far fetched.

What do you think?