Vice President David Petraeus?

After Republican leaders rightly criticized Senator Obama, a former state legislator with merely two years in the U.S. Senate, for being unqualified to be commander-in-chief and leader of the free world during the 2008 campaign, it would be an irony if they selected Marco Rubio, a former state legislator with merely two years in the U.S. Senate, as vice president in the 2012 election.

Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie will almost certainly not be the vice presidential nominee for the simple reason that they don’t want to be president. Both declined to run for the top job because, if rumors are to be believed, they were unwilling to undergo the rigors and personal scrutiny that a presidential campaign brings. If they were unwilling to do so for the presidency, why would they do so for the much lesser prize of the vice presidency?

Paul Ryan, meanwhile, is too valuable to the GOP in the House. As one of the more serious-minded legislators in the party, he would be wasted on the vice presidency.

Besides which, the vice presidential nominee almost never makes an actual difference in the election. The great myth is that the presidential nominee should pick a VP from a swing state in order to win more votes there. The problem is, that never happens. Perhaps once in American history has the VP delivered his state and swung an election: LBJ bringing Texas to give JFK the prize in 1960. That’s it, just once.

So it comes down to this: Who is actually qualified to be president? That’s the question Mitt Romney should be asking in selecting his running mate. That’s the only criterion that should really matter. There are very few people in the country with a plausible claim to being qualified for the presidency. Unfortunately, Bob Gates has definitively retired, reducing the number of candidates by one.

That leaves David Petraeus. Petraeus served as commanding general of both wars the U.S. fought over the last decade, headed up central command, and is now director of the CIA. And, of course, he had the courage and professionalism to serve in a deeply unpopular war and, remarkably, come out with his reputation enhanced. Probably no person alive has a better grasp of the international situation, America’s role in the world, and the limitations and capabilities of American power.

Petraeus has nearly universal name recognition and is one of the most well-respected figures in the country. A year ago only 11 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of him, according to Gallup, half that of Christie. And as a non-partisan figure he has not been tarnished by the partisanship and mud-slinging of recent years. Additionally, Petraeus would bring foreign policy expertise to the ticket, balancing Romney’s focus on economic issues. If Obama really intends to claim that his foreign policy accomplishments should earn voters’ respect, there is no one in the country with more credibility than Petraeus to take Obama’s argument apart.

He would bring gravitas and seriousness to a campaign season that, so far, has been more memorable for the parade of not serious GOP challengers who, thankfully, had the decency to drop out. His intelligence and ethic of public service would be a good match for Romney’s own. I admit "Romney-Rubio" has a nice, almost poetic ring to it; it rolls off the tongue beautifully. "Romney-Petraeus" has too many syllables. It sounds like something out of a technical manual, or a nickname for a loophole in the tax code. On the other hand, they might actually govern competently, which counts for something.