John O’Sullivan at The Corner mulls over the possibility that GOP delegates will elect somebody who isn’t currently in the field at a brokered national convention:

Indeed, if the field remains crowded and three or more survivors arrive at the Convention short of the required majority, then someone fresh and appealing might emerge from the ensuing brawl. Given the fashion for southern governors, the new faces might be South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, Alabama’s Bob Riley, or Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal. Riley is able and popular but too little known (though a possible veep nominee); Bobby Jindal was sworn in only this week—Senator Obama would point out that he was too inexperienced to run for the presidency. Haley Barbour is the cleverest man in American politics and would be a superb president, but his “Gool Ol’ Boy” camouflage will probably deter a nervous GOP from risking his candidacy. That leaves the telegenic Sanford, a moderate conservative, southern but not “too southern,” married to a charming telegenic wife, who has a 92 lifetime rating with the ACU and was often the only other congressman voting with Ron Paul against bills to expand government.

Sanford, the most libertarian governor this side of Gary Johnson, would make an attractive candidate. Although he is mum on the Iraq war, he voted with Paul to oppose intervention in the Balkans and abstained from voting on the ‘98 Iraq Liberation Act; I suspect he opposes the war. In Congress, his votes were more closely aligned with Paul’s than any other member of Congress.