John Baer: Does McCain need former Guv to Ridge the gap?

OK, SINCE John McCain and Tom Ridge shared a yellow-perch dinner (it's a tasty little pan fish they eat up there in Ridge's hometown, Erie) then made a couple of campaign stops together, there's renewed blather about a McCain/Ridge Republican ticket.

Ridge says he hasn't been vetted, but, hey, I imagine if one serves as national director of Homeland Security, the vetting is proctologic.

Plus, Ridge has a history of coyness in these instances.

Back in 2000, he allowed national speculation about being tapped as a VP candidate by then-Gov. Bush to drag on well after he, Ridge, privately took himself out of the running.

So, you know, what they say and what really is aren't always a match.

I think Ridge could help McCain in Pennsylvania, where, according to today's Daily News/Franklin & Marshall Poll, some help is needed.

I suspect that Ridge still polls well here. A former congressman and twice-elected governor, he's the prototypical experienced, socially moderate Republican (Thornburgh, Specter) whom Pennsylvanians like.

But here's the thing.

McCain doesn't need a moderate. And he doesn't need experience.

He needs somebody strong on the economy, somebody young and somebody who's conservative.

Ridge, who turns 63 in two weeks, is not that person.

"I think this is what national Republicans do," says a veteran GOP insider. "They like to trot out pro-choice moderates to show they're open-minded, but when it comes right down to it, they don't pick people like Tom Ridge."

Also, Ridge is not wholly a political joyride.

He was part of the Bush administration; Bush's job approval rating in a new CBS poll is 25 percent. He took flak for his security color-coding system. And, as state Senate Democratic Leader Bob Mellow mentioned yesterday during a conference call with reporters, Ridge was ridiculed as "Secretary Duct Tape" after suggesting in 2003 that Americans use duct tape to protect against terrorists' chemical or biological attacks.

It wasn't Ridge's brightest moment.

(Mellow, by the way, is the only Democrat I've ever heard refer to "the Democrat Party." Normally, it's Dick Cheney and Republicans saying that.)

And Pennsylvania is hardly fertile ground for national tickets.

We've had exactly one president, ever: James Buchanan, 1857-61, widely regarded as one of the worst presidents ever (on the eve of the Civil War, he advocated slavery).

And we've had exactly one vice president: George M. Dallas, 1845-49, a Philadelphian.

Guess their joint impact hasn't yet worn off.

Also, adding Ridge to the ticket, while helpful here, might not be enough to carry the state.

Pennsylvania hasn't gone GOP in a presidential election since 1988, when George H.W. Bush edged Michael Dukakis by 106,000 votes out of 4.5 million.

Voter-registration numbers released this week indicate ongoing enthusiasm among Democrats; not so much among Republicans.

Democrats now hold a 1.09 million-vote statewide registration edge.

In Philadelphia, the Democrat-to-Republican ratio approaches six-to-one.

Now, there's one caveat in all this.

Ridge and McCain are quarter-century-long friends, both decorated Vietnam War veterans elected to the U.S. House in 1982.

A Ridge confidant tells me that one of Ridge's roughest days as governor was "the day he drove down to Washington in 1999 to tell his friend John McCain he was supporting Governor Bush for president."

Their affection for one another is described as deep and sincere.

So, given McCain's reported penchant for going off-message and doing as he pleases, it's possible he could tell his political advisors to go pound salt and pick Tom Ridge.

But that's the only way I see it happening. And that's a long shot.

More likely, the only thing McCain's asking Ridge is to please pass the perch. *

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