New GOP Guessing Game: Name Bush Running Mate

Howard H. Baker Jr. says he won’t be asked. California Gov. George Deukmejian says he wouldn’t be able to accept. George Bush says it’s too early to think about it.

Still, a lot of people do.

As the vice president’s grip on the Republican presidential nomination tightens, the question arises: Who will be his running mate?

In a column for the London Sunday Times, former President Richard M. Nixon says White House Chief of Staff Baker could be Bush’s best bet.

Nixon argues that Baker, a Tennesseean and former Senate Republican leader, would be helpful in Southern states and in dealing with Congress.

But in a recent television interview, Baker said: “George Bush needs to find someone who will bring strength to the ticket on a regional and political basis, and I think that is not going to be me.”

‘Very Difficult Time’

He didn’t say he would turn it down. “If someone asked me to do it,” he said, “I would have a very difficult time trying to figure out what I was going to say.” But, he added: “I do not wish that to happen.”

Baker has mentioned former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, Deukmejian of California, New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean and former Pennsylvania Gov. Richard Thornburgh as good choices for the vice presidential slot.

If Deukmejian left office in mid-term, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, a Democrat, would become governor of the nation’s largest state. At a news conference in Sacramento recently, the California governor said: “Even if they did ask me to accept the vice presidential nomination, I wouldn’t be able to take it.” Later, he added, “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to be vice president.”

Nixon said he believes that ideally a presidential nominee should pick his strongest competitor as his running mate, as John F. Kennedy chose Lyndon B. Johnson and as President Reagan chose Bush. But, he says in his forthcoming column, there might be too much bitterness between the vice president and his chief rival, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas.

Unusual Alternative

Bush will have one unusual alternative: Pick his principal rival’s wife. Some are urging that he select Elizabeth Hanford Dole, the Reagan Administration secretary of transportation who was considered a potential presidential contender herself at one point.

Another possibility: Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, who ran as a conservative alternative to Bush for the presidential nomination but fared poorly. On Monday, Kemp endorsed Bush and pledged to “help him be the next President of the United States.”

Also mentioned is Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas. She was on a long list of potential Reagan running mates in 1980 but took herself out of consideration because, as a freshman senator, she said she didn’t have enough experience. She has eight years more of it now.

If Bush should decide to choose a Midwesterner, to strengthen the ticket in a region that could be crucial to Republican hopes, another possibility would be Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson, who endorsed the vice president and campaigned for him in the Illinois presidential primary.

Other names that have been mentioned include Sen. Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, Dole’s deputy in the Senate leadership; Secretary of Education William J. Bennett; Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, an architect of the congressional deficit-reduction mechanism, and Colin L. Powell, the President’s national security adviser and one of the top-ranking blacks in the Administration.