Will McCain Stab Conservatives in the Back with a Pro-Choice Veep?

If this is the surprise McCain's planning, he'd best not be surprised to be the loser on the 1st Wednesday in November:

If John McCain picks a pro-abortion running mate, he’s likely to lose. If he picks a pro-abortion Catholic as his running mate, he will definitely lose.

Right now McCain is skating on the thinnest of ice. At best, the election is tied. In many polls, he is 4-5 points down. He has yet to crack 45 percent in any national poll and is behind in key states. At worst, he is facing a blowout. Now is not the time to pussyfoot around with a guy like Tom Ridge.

The calculation is clear. McCain figures Ridge could deliver the key state of Pennsylvania. Let's look at the record. Ridge won statewide office in 1994 with only 45 percent of the vote. Why so low? Because he faced a third party pro-life challenger named Peg Lustig who polled a whopping 12 percent of the vote. Ridge ran again in 1998 and won with the much greater margin of 57 percent, but he did so against a very weak Democratic opponent and he forfeited 10 percent to pro-life Lustig, who ran again. That Ridge, now, ten years later, could help McCain win Pennsylvania is far from certain. And then there is what McCain loses elsewhere for picking Ridge.

Funny how McCain has given no thought whatsoever to Ridge's fellow Pennsylvanians and true blue conservatives Rick Santorum and Pat Toomey, either of whom would have far more of a chance to flip Pennsylvania into the McCain column than Ridge, and neither of whom would send conservatives fleeing for the exits.

McCain is a stubborn man well on his way to being exposed as a fool as well.