While it’d send a nice bipartisan message, it’d undercut a lot of the arguments the candidates have made on the campaign trail, and because their ideologies are so different, there might be a problem with keeping the opposing candidate from “playing ball.”
Obama has been questioning McCain’s judgment on foreign policy since day one, tying him over and over to Bush’s pre-emptive war policies and its strategy of non-negotiation with hostile regimes. So how could he put him in charge of the Pentagon?
McCain has said Obama lacks the experience and judgment to lead and is naive and doesn’t understand what to do in a dangerous world. So how could he name him Secretary of State?
It’s not a horrible idea at all. But you’d need a more civil campaign than this one for it to be possible. While I don’t think the candidates necessarily believe all the arguments they make on the trail, these moves would undercut many of the central ones, so they’d damage their own credibility. Both have talked about appointing independents and members of the opposite party to their cabinets, which was discussed in a thread I started over the weekend, but they won’t name each other.