Republican Strategist Karl Rove said on CBS' Face the Nationthat Barack Obama would choose his vice president based on political considerations rather than readiness for the position.
"I think he's going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice," Rove said. "He's going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he's going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He's not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president."
Rove used Virginia governor Tim Kaine as an example of a such a candidate.
"With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years, he's been able but undistinguished," Rove said. "I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America."
Rove added that Obama might pick Kaine for a better chance at winning Virgina's 13 electoral seats in the November election. An Associated Pressarticle today suggested that McCain is also considering a Virginia politician for his vice president.
Kaine spoke on Face the Nation earlier in the show and addressed the slew of recent attack ads by the McCain campaign compared to the positive ads aired by Obama.
"Senator McCain is running the same old negative, Karl Rove-style ads that we're all tired of," Kaine said.
When asked by host Bob Shieffer to answer to Kaine's statement, Rove brought up polls which continue to show that the race remains competitive. Today's Gallup Poll has Obama leading McCain by a three-point margin.
"With a restive electorate, with an economy that's sort of chugging along, with a war in the background, at the end of eight years of Republican rule in the White House, Obama should be way ahead," Rove said. "...the fact that he isn't says that there are grave doubts about Senator Obama."
A full transcript of the interview can be found here.
Republican Strategist Karl Rove said on CBS' Face the Nationthat Barack Obama would choose his vice president based on political considerations rather than readiness for the position.