Does Romney want Petraeus on his ticket?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"I don't know a lot about politics, but I know a lot about baseball." -- Richard Nixon

Obama thinks so, or so says Dudge, but, then again, Drudge is known for trudging through sludge and reporting nonsense as fact.

As Ed Kilgore writes, "It must be interesting to be Matt Drudge, with the power and the amorality to create big media 'stories' at the flick of a mouse, and with no limitations other than serving the ultimate aims of his corporate and partisan overlords." And, indeed, Drudge is supposedly tuned in to "Boston," Romney's HQ.

Then again, I'm not sure this is nonsense. Sure, it's highly unlikely that Petraeus would join Romney. He's currently running the CIA, an Obama appointee, and has repeatedly said -- and one suspects his sincerity here -- that he wouldn't run for political office.

So maybe Drudge is right that Romney wants (and fantasizes about) Petraeus, or at least that Obama thinks that he wants him. (As Dan Amira writes, Romney would "also probably love to have Ronald Reagan, and that scenario seems just about as likely.") Fine. But so what? Petraeus would no doubt be, at least at the outset, a game changer (to use that overworked term). He'd give Romney some military and foreign policy gravitas, a major hole for Mitt particularly after his disastrous foreign tour. It's not clear, however, that Petraeus would do well in the political spotlight over the long haul, and of course he has his own major holes, notably domestic policy and actual (elected) political experience.

It's all a moot point, though. It won't be Petraeus. The talk is about those boring white guys -- notably Pawlenty and Portman, but also Thune -- but if Romney departs from that comfort zone look for him to take a chance on Jindal, Christie, or Ryan, not the general who waged Bush's wars.