The manner that Hillary leaves is still to be decided and can be discussed elsewhere but clearly the time for serious speculation about Obama’s VP choice is upon us.
Does he take someone from the Hillary side of the party as a show of unity? Wes Clark? A Strickland or a Rendell even who can help deliver a key state? Maybe better yet Indiana’s Bayh?
Does he take a Rocky Mountain person? Female like Sebelius or Napalitano?
A Southern White man, like Bredesen?
Does he go with foreign policy expertise, like Lee Hamilton? Or economic gravitas like Dodd?
My short list of people who share Obama’s aura of change, and who opposed the war from the get-go:
Jim Webb - Senator from Virginia -fits the white guy 60-something, bi-partisan, war opposition frame.
Brian Schweitzer - Montana Governor - fit’s the bill for bi-partisan, non-Washington insider.
Sherrod Brown - Senator from Ohio would help Obama carry that state in November and is right up there with a Kathleen Sebelius with her strong bi-partisan schtick.
Obama hasn’t done well with Hispanic voters. This is one group the Dems **can’t ** ignore. The Republicans could eventually get smart and drop immigration as their hot button issue.
I been expecting it to be Bill Richardson. The reasons have already been mentioned.
He helps with the Hispanic Voters
He has Foreign Policy Cred
He has some Green Cred
He is from the West
My hope has been the long shot of Michael Bloomberg, but that is extremely unlikely, especially in a convention that will be close. If Obama has a larger lead going in, I would believe it might be possible, but he will need to appease the superdelagates with a choice acceptable to them. I think Richardson will fill that requirement also.
As much as I would like to see this, someone who just a few weeks ago on NPR said that Washington DC can “go to hell” is probably not going to get any sort of mainstream political nod.
…in that order. Clark is not even on my list, nor are any of the nudniks who are surrogates for Clinton’s disastrous campaign. Bayh? Oh, please. Rendell? There aren’t enough rolleyes.
Of course I’d really love it to be Russ Feingold, but that’d absolutely doom Obama’s chances
Just curious why Claire McCaskill is getting mentioned. I know next to nothing about her, except that she was a well-regarded State Auditor when I lived in Missouri. What, potentially, does she bring to the ticket?
They also don’t want to kiss off Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and make Texas potentially competitive. The demographics point to huge Hispanic populations in the Western states. The Dems would be smart to pick Richardson to try to lock in the Hispanic vote. The Republicans are playing a dangerous game by beating the immigration drum, but that is a seperate debate.
Ovaries. Other than that, I see nothing. IMO, she’s loser. She lost the governor’s race to a retarded chimp a few years ago. Then she won the senate seat on name recognition.
Here’s my short list:
She’s been used increasingly as a campaign spokesperson. She’s concise, stays on message, and apparently people respond well to her comments.
I’m leery of Obama’s choosing a Senator who’s in a seat we could lose, since the day the Dems get to 60 Senators is the day we can start dealing with climate change, health care, and all the other big issues. But I think McCaskill would be a good running mate, and MO’s historically been competitive at the state level, so we might could hold onto her seat once she was veep.