Welcome to our new regular feature  — Extreme Veepstakes.  We are asking great and famous Americans to make the case for potential running-mates, both parties.  We begin today with Quin Hillyer, an Associate Editor at the Washington Examiner and Senior Editor for the American Spectator.  Quin is a longtime conservative movement veteran who has written a four-part series about how John McCain should decide on his choice of a running mate. This is how Quin summarizes his conclusions:

For a running mate, John McCain needs a Reaganite (to excite the conservatives who actually do the work in presidential campaigns) and somebody who could be ready, at a moment’s notice, to become president in an emergency. He also wants somebody to make a couple of states more competitive. In short, he needs Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, 16-year veteran of Congress from California, first chairman of the original Homeland Security Committee, chairman of the committee that exposed Chinese espionage, author of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, and former high-ranking legal aide in the Reagan White House.

Cox is brilliant, telegenic, extremely articulate, and deeply knowledgeable about so many issues that National Review’s Jay Nordlinger once called him “omnicompetent.” He can help McCain in California, thusly: McCain already does better in that state than most Republicans; he will do better among the already-GOP-leaning military there than most do; he will do better among Hispanics than most GOPers because of his position on immigration (yuck); and he has Gov. Terminator to help him with the moderates and independents; but what he lacks is somebody who can motivate California conservatives. Cox does that, and also helps in Silicon Valley, because he is a hero to the tech community. Finally, Cox helps in Minnesota, at least to some extent, because he grew up there and (I am told) he is still considered a hometown boy made good. What better way to make the GOP National Convention in Minnesota a smashing success with Minnesota (swing-state) voters than to crown a hometown boy as Veep?!? (For more, read here and here.)