DAYTON, OHIO — John McCain will introduce his running mate today as he launches a five-day "Road to the Convention" tour with a rally designed to steal the spotlight from the Democrats on his 72nd birthday.
As Republicans begin heading to their own four-day convention in St. Paul, Minn., McCain kept a tight lid on his selection for vice president and the political calculations that got him there. The presumptive Republican nominee spent much of the last week at his compound in Arizona working on his acceptance speech, shooting a biographical film for the GOP convention, and, by his own account, making up his mind on a running mate.
An aide said that McCain reached his decision Thursday morning.
At least three of the most often mentioned possibilities -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and close McCain friend Joe Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut who was Democrat Al Gore's running mate in 2000 -- will appear Saturday with McCain at a rally in Washington, Pa., according to a senior McCain aide.
Whether that rules them in or out as McCain's running mate is unclear.
McCain himself has given little hint of his preference other than that his choice must share his values and principles and must be qualified to step in as commander in chief. Along the way, McCain has weighed the relative merits of a disparate group of potential running mates, each with distinct pros and cons, in the fall contest against Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
To shore up concerns about the nation's economic woes and McCain's admitted lack of experience in that area, Romney would bring a record as a former business executive who earned hundreds of millions of dollars as the head of Bain Capital, a private Boston-based equity firm that bought and sold companies.
But Democrats already have tagged Romney as an anti-union "job-killing machine," a charge that helped sink his 1994 bid to unseat Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Romney's first bid for public office.
Beyond that, McCain appeared to dislike Romney intensely when the two clashed in debates during the spring primaries. Aides say the two have buried their grudges, and McCain has publicly praised Romney in recent weeks.
If Romney is chosen, however, Democrats will focus on their former feud, such as Romney's charge last spring that McCain would set a "liberal Democrat course as president" and his reminder that "McCain has said time and again that he doesn't understand the economy."
