First, do no harm.

Then, deliver something -- preferably a big electoral state.

They're the two cardinal rules of Vice Presidential Politics 101, but in this confounding, precedent-shattering election year, will they still matter in the selection of a running mate?

For example, does Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer who has been campaigning vigorously for Sen. John McCain, really have a shot at the No. 2 spot?

She has been in the news a lot lately -- not always in a way she might like -- most recently last week when she complained to reporters that insurers cover the cost of Viagra but not birth control pills, in the process misrepresenting Mr. McCain's record and igniting a mini-firestorm on the Internet.

It also created an embarrassing moment for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who refused to answer questions about it Thursday in a tense exchange captured on YouTube.com.

The buzz around Ms. Fiorina only underscores the tough choices facing Mr. McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Do they go with the old reliables of geography and political experience -- that is, a vice-presidential candidate who can both swing a state and not surprise us with any new information -- or, do they go with a new face, an "outside the box" candidate from the private sector?

There's also the gender issue, certainly a timely one this year. On the Democratic side are thoroughly vetted candidates like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gov. Kathleen Sibelius of Kansas and Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. On the Republican side are Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Then there are women like Ms. Fiorina, 53, the most high-profile of the GOP crop, not just because she's a close McCain adviser and an indefatigable cheerleader and fundraiser for him, but because she has been somewhat gaffe-prone of late.

Last week at a Washington breakfast with reporters, she was discussing consumer-driven health care and cited "a real live example I've been hearing a lot about from women: Many health insurance plans cover Viagra but won't cover birth-control medication. Those women would like a choice."

Liberal columnists, Internet bloggers and the National Abortion Rights Action League immediately pounced, not just at the spectacle of a McCain surrogate discussing Viagra or "choice," but to point out that Mr. McCain had voted against a bill requiring insurers to cover birth control.

It wasn't the first verbal misstep by Ms. Fiorina, who earlier told a group of former supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Columbus, Ohio, that the Arizona senator "has never signed on to efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade" -- even though Mr. McCain has said repeatedly on the campaign trail that the abortion rights law should be overturned.

On Friday, Ms. Fiorina went on National Public Radio to say she had responded to a comment made by a reporter at the breakfast who "basically said people don't want a choice in their health insurance, they just want to be told what their health insurance plan is, and I just reject that. I wasn't trying to make a veiled reference to the issue of 'pro-life' or 'pro-choice.' "

Ms. Fiorina has made no secret of her interest in the No. 2 spot, telling reporters her six years running Hewlett-Packard gave her the kind of executive decision-making experience -- from freezing budgets to trimming the work force -- that U.S. senators can only talk about.

That argument isn't swaying some local Republicans active in the McCain campaign, each of whom pushed their own favorites -- both of them men who have held public office.

"She's an intriguing choice, but John McCain needs someone who helps him strategically," said former Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey. "What state can Ms. Fiorina deliver? In the end, this election is going to be about electoral votes."

He said Mitt Romney would bring more strength to the ticket because of his business background and would help Mr. McCain in Michigan, Utah and some of the mountain states that Mr. Obama is targeting.

John Brabender, who has been advising Mr. McCain on media strategy, said he would "love the idea of having a woman on the ticket. Carly Fiorina is articulate, likeable and smart and would be terrific, but do we know everything that would be used against her?"

On the other hand, he noted, Tom Ridge is a known quantity and could deliver Pennsylvania, something the GOP couldn't do in the last two presidential elections. The former Pennsylvania governor and Homeland Security secretary has been largely written off because of his pro-choice stance.

"People have said John McCain has a conservative problem, but I'm not seeing that in the polling data," Mr. Brabender said, adding that Mr. Ridge is perceived as a relatively conservative governor who supported abortion restrictions enacted by his predecessor, Bob Casey.

Mr. McCain nonetheless needs a choice that energizes his candidacy and reinforces his image as not just a typical politician, argued Nathan Gonzales, political editor of The Rothenberg Political Report, a Washington, D.C.-based newsletter.

"Anything that McCain can do to separate himself from standard Republican politics or the Republican way of doing things helps him because he's running against a candidate who is trying to embody change in every sense of the word," Mr. Gonzales said, adding that delivering Michigan or Utah is a non-issue, since "John McCain is going to be competitive in Michigan without Mitt Romney on the ticket, and if Mr. McCain isn't winning Utah then he isn't winning the election."

The McCain campaign declined to make Ms. Fiorina available for an interview, citing her busy schedule, which included a visit to her in-laws in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. Ms. Fiorina's husband, Frank, grew up in Penn Hills, retiring as an AT&T vice president in 1997 to help his wife with her career, which took off in 1999 when she was named CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

They come back to the city often, according to a nephew, Joel Feldman.

"She's positively the nicest, most easy going person you'd ever want to meet," said Mr. Feldman, owner with his mother, Ursula Fiorina Feldman, of Penn Automotive in Homestead. "She's here all the time with her husband and loves spending time with our kids."

That low-key, easygoing description of Ms. Fiorina in Pittsburgh is a far cry from her brash, limelight-seeking style at the Palo Alto, Calif., tech giant. Her tenure there included a controversial merger with Compaq Computer Corp., thousands of layoffs, a sinking stock price, public feuding with the company's family members and an exodus of talented executives, culminating with her firing in 2005 and a lavish $21 million severance package.

As Hewlett-Packard's stock price has bounced back, there's debate about whether Ms. Fiorina should get credit -- even as she contended in her memoir, "Tough Choices," that she was treated more harshly because she was a woman.

Not only that, she was an ambitious woman -- known to be interested in political office, appearing on television frequently and, at one point, on the cover of Forbes magazine with Condoleezza Rice.

"She handled herself on TV very well," said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, noting that if she doesn't make it in a McCain administration, she might run in the 2010 race against California Sen. Barbara Boxer, or, in 2012, for California governor, since Arnold Schwarzenegger is prohibited from running again.

"There are a lot of attractive options out there for her," Mr. Whalen said.

He added that there is real competition from Meg Whitman. She's the former CEO of eBay, who is also an active surrogate for Mr. McCain and once served as Mr. Romney's finance chairwoman.

"Meg Whitman could cause some problems for Carly Fiorina," Mr. Whalen said. "Meg is fabulously wealthy, with more cash on hand than Carly, and we all know that in politics, cash is king. Plus, she has a cleaner story. Carly Fiorina's departure from Hewlett-Packard was controversial, while Meg Whitman's wasn't -- unless you have a problem with PayPal."

Ms. Fiorina's turbulent record at Hewlett-Packard, as well as her years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, could be fair game for Mr. Obama's opposition researchers, added David Carney, a Republican strategist who worked in George H.W. Bush's White House.

While Mr. McCain should fight the instinct to be safe, he also must pick someone who can survive the brutal hazing that vice-presidential candidates must undergo.

"The McCain people may be thinking about reaching out to someone in business, but they need to be careful," Mr. Carney said. "Did that company outsource jobs? Did the company's stock price perform? Are there subsidiaries who use slave labor?"

"The challenge for someone who has never run for public office is that they've never run for public office," added Mark Holman, a longtime Ridge adviser and a fundraiser for Mr. McCain during the primary season.

"I don't know if it would be fair to put someone in that position," he said. "The skills of being a candidate have to be learned and require a lot of practice. There are a lot of bumps and bruises along the way."

Ms. Fiorina may be learning that lesson well -- maybe a little too well -- but if she has been scratched off the vice president list, Mr. Brabender has another job in mind for her.

"The best role, the perfect role for her is to totally reorganize the Republican National Committee -- the whole Republican Party," he said. "She reorganized Hewlett-Packard in a large merger, and with her organization and management skills she'd be incredibly suited to that task, in communications and recruitment, that others weren't as good at. She'd really whip that place into shape."