Okay, we're in the silly season of vice presidential speculation. Anyone who knows something isn't talking, and anyone who is talking doesn't know anything. Still, in that spirit, let me suggest three names—all women—who are not getting that much attention as vice presidential possibilities for Senator John McCain. Each is accomplished, but they've been overlooked either because they're considered ideologically impure or they've been overshadowed by someone with a similar background.

I've chosen three women because, while I think a demographic gimmick normally wouldn't work, McCain needs to do something eye-catching to have a real chance in this election. The polls are close, but the terrain favors Barack Obama, who makes history as the first African-American candidate from either party and who benefits through his "change" persona.

A woman would be jarring, in a good way. I've skipped ones without much bona fides, like Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin, who has been mentioned. If McCain is running on an experience-matters premise, he shouldn't pick a newbie. Also, I've skipped Condi Rice because if McCain really thinks the war was dreadfully mismanaged until recently, that surely falls under the watch of the former national security adviser.

Here then, are the Cooper Considerations:

Olympia Snowe: The senior senator from Maine has been in the Senate for 14 years and served in the House before that. She's married to a former Republican governor of Maine. She has close ties to the Bush family, which, of course, has kept a residence in Kennebunkport. She sits on the Armed Services Committee and knows defense policy intricately. She's been overlooked because she's a moderate, pro-choice, and had the temerity to vote against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

But while her nomination would surely annoy conservatives, I think the gain with centrists would be offset. She didn't support the Clinton tax hikes, although she didn't back the George W. Bush tax cuts, a position once held by McCain himself. Unless she's for raising taxes now, and she isn't, I don't see why she couldn't pass muster with the fiscal conservatives. Like McCain, she's a spending hawk. On choice, she just has to note that she's supported all of the conservative nominees that McCain has and that she will continue to support them, and while she's personally pro-choice, McCain is president and that's that. It'll be a ruckus, but McCain could stand some ruckus right now.

Meg Whitman: The former eBay C.E.O. is a McCain backer and surrogate after supporting her former Bain & Co. colleague Mitt Romney in the primary. She obviously has real-world economic and management experience. She helped grow a modern internet company. She's reliably Republican. When I spoke to her about Romney last year, she said that she didn't agree with him on all the social issues, which you could take to mean abortion rights, I guess. But as with Snowe, that's a surmountable challenge. There's talk of her running for governor of California in 2010, but why wait until then?

And it's hard to see picking Carly Fiorina over Whitman. Fiorina, for all her strengths, was kicked out of the Hewlett Packard C.E.O. slot by an angry board. Whether that was unfair, as she alleges, or not, what's the difference? Take the chief executive with the better record.

Linda Lingle: Heard of her? Probably not. She's the Republican governor of Hawaii. Jewish. Moderate. A former mayor of Maui. (Okay, that last one is not a presidential qualification.) She's shown a proven ability to win in a heavily Democratic state. She was the first Republican to be elected governor since 1962. She took on the teachers unions over drug testing—the teachers, not the students. Like McCain, she's press-friendly, having once started her own newspaper.

After that, I think the list drops off pretty quickly in terms of women. Senator Susan Collins of Maine has a similarly moderate record to Snowe, but less experience. Representative Candice Miller of Michigan, elected in 2002, served as Michigan's secretary of state for eight years, but is probably too lightweight, along with Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, to be the veep this time out. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas seems to want to be governor of the Lone Star State more than she wants to be in the veep mix.

I realize that none of the Cooper choices will probably get much consideration, but it's a sign of weakness in the G.O.P. that moderates like these can't even be considered, while Obama is encouraged to select the likes of Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia who has strong defense credentials. If the G.O.P. wants to win over disaffected Democrats, it needs to consider vice presidential nominees who have a proven track record of winning them over.

Photo caption/credit: Olympia Snowe, left (Darla Khazei/Abaca Press/MCT); Meg Whitman, center (Paul Sakuma/AP); Linda Lingle, right (Ronen Zilberman/AP)

Get a daily fix of how politicians, business leaders, and others in the news are faring with the Portfolio.com Capital Index.