It seems Sen. McCain told Don Imus that he's narrowing down a list of potential running mates and right now, he's considering about twenty people.

Over the weekend, some folks tossed Condaleeza Rice's name around the media as someone who was campaigning for the position, but it appears that Mr. McCain doesn't have any interest.

The evangelicals keep coming back to Mike Huckabee and he would help McCain with that bloc, but naming him to the number two spot would certainly be political suicide in the general election and I've never actually heard anything from McCain that would make me think he'd be a choice.

Mitt Romney's name is being pushed by folks like Rove and Hannity, he is well liked among the economic wing of the party and he'd really help with money, but there's a group of twenty, prominent social conservatives who are running an open letter ad saying that if McCain picks him, their constituency will either stay home or only vote down-ticket.

There are other names being floated; Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota and former Rep. and past Director of Bush II's OMB, an Ohioian named Rob Portman, but both of these are lesser lights and it seems Sen. McCain's choices could be becoming limited.

Personally, I'm not sure which way McCain would go. There could be an argument that he'll have to shore-up his conservative credentials and as a Democrat, I have to say that this wouldn't worry me. But, if you take into consideration the points raised by my recent post about McCain's race to the middle, then you can't really discount that he may make a choice from the Republican's more moderate ranks.

This could be particularly problematic for the Democrats in the fall because one of the first names which comes to my mind is Colin Powell, who would instantly give the Republicans a boost in the polls and would instll a sense of gravitas to the ticket. And, if he wanted to go unorthodox, I'd have to worry about the possibility of Sen. Olympia Snowe because she'd certainly move Maine to the McCain column, plus she'd help throughout New England, with women and independent voters. Christie Todd Whitman would be another name that might give me pause because she'd help in the Mid Atlantic, she has some economic conservative credentials, plus she quit the Bush Administration over an environmental issue, making her something of a "maverick", who's also known as a fighter.

If you're a Republican, who do you like and if you're a Democrat (like myself), who frightens you?