Now that the nominees are set -- barring some unforeseen event, like a "bloodless coup" which brings Hillary Clinton to the forefront, or an invasion of the RNC staged by Ron Paul fans -- so its time to start the wild and irresponsible speculation over who will be the Vice Presidential nominee on the Republican side.

Salon already has a theory that I kind of agree with.

More than almost anyone in public life, Joe Lieberman knows from experience how to finesse a vice-presidential question. At the end of an impromptu press conference after a visit to discuss global warming with sixth graders here on Monday, Al Gore's 2000 veep pick was asked if he would be John McCain's running mate this time around. "No," Lieberman says flatly, as if the question were as ludicrous as his joining the antiwar movement....

But in a presidential year filled with firsts (African-American nominee, serious woman candidate, former POW to be his party's standard-bearer), Lieberman retains the intriguing potential to become the first Jewish, party-crossing, second-time-around vice-presidential nominee in American history. While McCain is keeping his vice-presidential deliberations intensely private, it is not hard to pick up Republican whispers that the wild-card Lieberman speculation is grounded in reality rather than water-cooler fantasy.

Joe Lieberman.

Granted, the two of them together would closely resemble those two dudes who heckled the Muppets from the box seats, and the campaign may have to start a special "expenses" file for prunes, the combination is appealing.

John McCain will never win over...practically any Republicans. Less than 20% of Republican party members approve of their nominee, with both staunch right-wingers and libertarians bailing from the party as fast as they can rationalize their decision to stay home on election day. The former is angry with McCain's "Maverick" stance on things like immigration reform and his willingness to sell judicial nominees down the river for meaningless, but headling grabbing bipartisan compromises. The latter is frightened by McCain's willingness to be exactly like Bush (with only a few exceptions) and his unparalleled commitment to silencing the freedom of speech through political contributions. If the prospect of a President Obama isn't frightening enough to motivate shaky idealistic voters, the Republican party is going to have to count on a brand new group of people: moderates and Democrats disenfranchised with their party's decision to nominate someone who isn't Hillary herself.

The tide is already coming into McCain's harbor: faced with threats from the right to abandon ship if he courted PUMA ("Party United My A**) -- a group of voters who approached (or at least considered) McCain after the Dems outsed Hil -- he plodded on anyway. Hillary voters have already established websites calling for their kin to vote for the Arizona Senator, and with Obama possibly representing less than half of the Democrats in the party, its not outlandish to believe that allowing the Maverick to be more...Maverick is the right thing to do to win in November.

Joe Lieberman may be the guy. His outlook on the war on terror fits well with McCain's foreign policy, he has a solid commitment to Israel, and has remained a "moderate" Democrat for the majority of his career. Although he's not socially conservative by any stretch, his views are in line with the majority of Americans who occupy the squishy, almost non-political middle on things like abortion and gay marriage (and values voters are staunchly in the "right wingers staying home category, anyway). And like McCain, he has a combination of experience and ideology that appeals to Reagan Democrats -- the very rust belt denizens who deliver Midwestern swing states.

Of course, we'd have to expand the platform at the convention.

Personally, I wouldn't mind Joe. I like him...probably more than McCain, though in my mind, that's not particularly difficult. My top choice, however, is someone a bit unconventional: Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

She has everything: she's young, vibrant, the governor of a state that's in the middle of the energy policy fray; she's a mom of five kids, she has intellectual curiosity and comprehensive stances on social issues and she's openly admitted to using marijuana, has libertarian tendencies -- especially fiscal libertarian tendencies -- and to top it off, she's drop dead gorgeous as far as political women go. Sure, her experience is limited, and her state only has three electoral votes and twenty or so people, but she seems way too good to pass up.

And plus, she'd beat out any Obama veep in a beauty contest.

Even John Edwards.

Who else is talking about the race to be the second in command? Check out the Huffington Post, where speculation is rampant that it will be a woman...but not the woman I'm thinking of, Doug Wead is on the same page as Salon and SJ Reidhead (a.k.a. The Pink Flamingo) is examining the Palin Possibility over at BlogCritics.