I’ve thought about this for a while and until tonight was only thinking of Santorum. Santorum is not really a viable presidential candidate. He is a big government conservative which is not a major problem for electability (see GWB), and he is also too conservative socially to frighten many of the centrist voters away. I think he would lose to Obama in a landslide. But that’s all theory since he is running far behind Romney and Gingrich. However Santorum’s performance in the debates, and his ad campaigns against Newt Gingrich have made me believe that though outwardly it seems like he is fighting Newt for the same conservative voters and 2nd place, in reality he is trying to keep Newt from catching up to Romney. Sure, he also throws in powerful attacks on Romney, especially the debate attack on Romneycare, but in his mind that could be the reason why people would think him a good complement to Romney – someone who would keep Romney from going left if elected.

Is there an upside to Romney’s picking Santorum for VP? I think there are definitely better candidates. But Santorum does shore up the social and anti-Romneycare conservatives. Or so he might be hoping.

Moving on to Paul. Paul has defended Romney in very personal terms recently – did you see his defense of Romney’s not caring about the very poor?

“”I don’t believe for a minute that if Mitt Romney was sitting here, that if he released everything in his heart, he (would say): ‘You know what, the truth is, I really don’t care about poor people.’ That isn’t–I just don’t believe that,” Paul said in an interview on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight.”"

Ron Paul has also often been very lenient on Mitt Romney, and backing Mitt up in debates by attacking Newt Gingrich. That’s been fairly obvious and somewhat of a mystery, considering there isn’t that much difference in Mitt’s and Newt’s professed stances on various issues where they differ from Ron Paul. I know it is not that much to go on, but let’s see what Ron Paul can add to the Romney’s ticket. Well, Ron Paul is very popular with a significant segment on the independents, and even some democrats. Ron Paul is seen as a different kind of politician. He speaks his mind, he backs his views with his voting record, and he has very devoted followers. If he can bring a decent chunk of those voters with him, it will bump up Romney’s electability.

Now, I am a Romney supporter and I am also ethnically Jewish. Paul’s anti-Israel views and general foreign policy views offend me. Additionally, I think there is genuine concern over charges of racism in his past. That is why I never considered Paul as a Presidential candidate. However I could partly overlook those views if he was Romney’s VP, because let’s face it, VP slot is not really instrumental in setting policy, and there is no way Paul could ever influence Romney on Foreign Policy enough to significantly matter. Also of course Paul is older than the quite robust and healthy Mitt Romney, and there is not that much danger of him becoming president.

I think many republicans who could never consider voting for Ron Paul to be President, would not be turned away by him being on the ticket. Plus we would potentially gain a host of RINOs, independents and democrats in November. I think those things are on Paul’s and Mitt’s minds and makes the scenario at least a possibility in my mind.

So both Paul and Santorum are continuing in this race and trying to block any possibility of Newt gaining a majority, could be their plan to win Romney over to the possibility of them being on the ticket.

Your thoughts?