“No. 1, it will provide a week or two of hopefully favorable attention to the Romney campaign instead of mixing it up with all of the other attention that goes on at the time of the convention,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “No. 2, it will give two or three weeks to work out any problems or issues that are unexpected, so it wouldn’t be a distraction from the convention.

“No. 3, perhaps most important, it would give Romney a very useful surrogate,” he added. “Someone who could go to fundraisers, someone who could make speeches, someone who could begin to call President Obama’s record into question.”…

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) said, “One of the advantages is he kind of doubles the team, if you will, and that would be helpful.

“Get somebody else out on the campaign trail that has a major focus, somebody else who can cover fundraising,” Johanns added. “If he’s come to a conclusion as to who the person would be, it seems to make some sense to me to go forward with the decision.”