Mittens Might Ask Condoleezza Rice to the Vice Presidential Sock Hop

So, it might be a little weird to read this, but it’s Friday, after all, and we can let things get a little crazy: Sarah Palin might have been right about something when she mused on Thursday that Mitt Romney wouldn’t pick a wildcard like Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Well shucks, Sarah — why the golly heck not? “I think that Governor Romney,” she told Fox News, “will probably play it safe, relatively speaking, in terms of finding someone who is a known commodity.” A known commodity like, say, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice? Maybe!

According to a report that the Wall Street Journal thinks Matt Drudge probably ladled like chum into the vast media ocean, the Romney camp could be seriously considering Rice as a VP pick, mostly because Republicans think she offsets Romney’s white prickishness and consequently bestow her with 80 percent of their approval. The report mentions a fundraising email Rice sent on behalf of the Romney campaign’s “Meet the VP” drive, an initiative aimed at shaking down small-dollars donors for a chance to shake Mittens’ mittens and meet his eventual running mate.

The Journal speculates that Matt Drudge, who has a close relationship with Romney’s campaign manager Matt Rhoades, floated the report as a “trial balloon” aimed at gauging voter reactions to Rice as a potential pick. Rice, however, has had a tenuous relationship with the Republican establishment (see her spats with Dick Cheney), has never run for political office, and favors abortion rights, on which issue Romney has swung in the completely opposite direction. She has also bluntly said on CBS’ This Morning that she wouldn’t consider getting on the Romney ticket. “There is no way,” she said, “I will do this because it’s really not me. I know my strengths and weaknesses.” People change their minds, I guess, but a Romney/Rice ticket seems like too many awkward facial expressions for one campaign to cope with. They could, however, film some great commercials sitting out on a white-sand beach, sipping piña coladas, and wearing Hawaiian shirts. A rich, mahogany voice would intone, “Beat the cold weather and get some R&R from the shitty economy this November,” at which point an army of puppies would run across the camera and big America fireworks go off against an iridescent sunset.