Obama's VP Options

This is my ranking of the top 5 of the rumored short list with a bonus off-the-radar dream pick at the end. I'm not going to mention my favorite choice, Jim Webb, or my least favorite choice, Hillary Clinton, because the word is neither is on the short list. I'm also not going to mention Sam Nunn because I don't think there's any chance for him, but I'd put him around the middle of the pack.

I should point out that, while my top 2 are foreign policy picks, I don't think Obama necessarily needs a foreign policy VP. Obama is completely capable of handling foreign policy. Picking a foreign policy guy could even have the detrimental effect of confirming the idea that Obama himself is lacking in that area. However, there are certainly voters out there who worry about Obama in foreign affairs and I think the right VP could help just as Cheney helped Bush get elected. That's just a long way of saying that whether a person knows or doesn't know foreign policy wasn't a major factor in this list.

5. Evan Bayh (Senator from Indiana)

He could actually deliver a state that McCain expects to win with his family's name and may help elsewhere in the Rust Belt. I'm not sure he is much more than a name, though. He is a good politician, but a little too much of a typical politician. He's very boring, and supported Hillary and the War in Iraq. Those two things aren't terrible in themselves, but they indicate that he has no political courage. I wouldn't blame Obama for making the pick, but I really dislike Bayh.

4. Kathleen Sebelius (Governor of Kansas)

By some perverse Clinton logic, any other woman as VP would be a slap in the face to Clinton. That's one reason I like Sebelius! For another, she has almost impossibly high approval ratings in a deeply red state. And she plays into a Democratic Western Strategy. She may also help Obama remind voters that his mother's family is from Kansas. She personally is the daughter of a popular politician from the battleground state of Ohio. She and Obama seem to get along very well and she was an early ally. Unfortunately, she seemed extremely boring in the State of the Union response.

3. Tim Kaine (Governor of Virginia)

I can't figure out if he looks creepy or down-to-earth. He has a law degree from Harvard, was an early endorser and reportedly gets along very well with Obama, and hails from an important state. He has very little experience, though, even in domestic politics. He is personally pro-life but says the right things about favoring pro-choice policies. The Democratic Party is going to be pro-choice, but Obama and Kaine may be able to soften the image created by folks like NARAL. He has seemed fine in interviews.

2. Wesley Clark (Retired General)

He got into trouble and Obama was quick to denounce him a while back, so I'm thinking he's not a likely pick. He is not even expected to be at the convention, but that could be a fake out. If he is the VP, the fact that he is a Clintonite could help unite the party. His background is very impressive. Seriously, check out his Wikipedia page. West Point valedictorian. Rhodes Scholar. Vietnam War hero. His master's degree thesis was a precursor to the Powell Doctrine. Strong leadership as he moved up the ranks in the Army. Supreme Allied Commander during Kosovo. He shores up Obama's military and foreign policy credentials real quick. I'm not totally comfortable with Clark, but there are worse options.

1. Joe Biden (Senator from Delaware)

He was my second choice in the primaries. He has extensive experience working in the Senate where he will preside as VP. He has a lot of foreign policy experience as a result of his activities in the Senate and is eager for a fight on foreign policy. He would be great at attacking McCain and it would be even more powerful coming from Biden as they have worked together and been friends for many years. He would kill anybody in the VP debate, one of the most important qualifications of a VP candidate. He doesn't pull any punches. His "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" comment about Giuliani was genius. I like that he doesn't seem to have much of a filter on what he says, but that is his biggest drawback as a VP candidate. He will say something very controversial between now and November, and it is not Obama's style to take risks. Delaware is almost a Southern state, so Biden would probably be good at connecting with conservative independents. If I had confidence that Biden could avoid causing problems for Obama, he'd be far and away my favorite option. As it is, he's only slightly preferable to the others.

*. Brian Schweitzer (Governor of Montana)

I haven't read anywhere that he is on the short list. He's probably more a part of the Democratic Party's future than its present. But he's an exciting politician. I have only seen a few interviews with him, but he seems intelligent, genuine, and mainstream. The picture is Schweitzer downing a shot to celebrate after personally delivering the liquor license to allow the re-opening of a Montana bar made famous by Kerouac. The Democrats have a better chance of turning the West blue than the South. He could help. On energy policy, he is a big advocate of coal gasification and liquefaction. Oh, and he speaks Arabic! Here's the case for Schweitzer from FiveThirtyEight.com.

Gen. Clark: McCain Untested and Untried on National Security

i'll be back...

let's have a linda richman moment here...

schwarzenegger for republican vp.

discuss.

Obama Names Patti Solis Doyle VP's Chief of Staff

Clinton fired her during the primary campaign and they reportedly are not on good terms. HuffPo:

One thing the move does suggest, insiders believe, is that Hillary Clinton's chances of being tapped for the vice presidency are now slim to nil.

A Clintonite called it the "biggest fuck you I have ever seen in politics."

I'm not sure how smart this is politically, but I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

UPDATE: Oh, and I find it strange that Clinton supporters are so concerned with politeness after her scorched earth campaign against Obama.

Obama's Appalachian Problem

Obama's problem is less with "working-class whites" than it is with Appalachia. A Daily Kos contributor has presented great analysis with two striking graphics. Below is a map of Appalachia and a map of counties (in purple) where Clinton won 65% of the vote.

Since this second map was created, West Virginia and Kentucky have voted and would be almost completely purple.

As you can see, Obama has been trounced mostly in Appalachia, as well as the hills of the Ozarks and the Texas Hill Country.

Yes, this area has many working-class whites, but there are plenty of working-class whites in the rest of the country. Working-class whites dominate the West, where Obama has regularly beaten Clinton.

Obama's main weakness is in Appalachia. The ideal VP candidate would help Obama with voters in this geographic region and those voters like them around the country.

18 Million

People who support Clinton for VP keep pointing out that 18 million voted for her. First, Obama will be able to get the votes of nearly all of those without Clinton. Second, there's no guarantee that all 18 million will vote for Obama with her as VP. Third, it will take over 60 million votes to win in November. Clinton repels way more potential voters than she brings.

As Carter pointed out, combining against you the 50% of the electorate that will never vote for a Clinton with those that will never vote for a black man named Barack Hussein Obama is not a winning strategy.

why we need bill...

richardson, that is...

There are 3 under-registered, under-voting groups for whom an identity politics can trigger massive increases in participation: youth, Afro-Americans and Latinos. It is true that the poor and lower middle-class constitute a fourth group, but they have been relatively difficult to reach and congeal to increase their electoral participation in part because they have a variety of different interests, and thus, since Robert Kennedy, have not had a single iconic figure around which to rally.

Barack Obama's persona and message have galvanized the first two, and legions are going out to increase their participation this fall.

The third group is Latinos.

Governor Richardson has been nominated 5 times for the Nobel Peace Prize, is loved by labor, is highly experienced in foreign policy having negotiated successfully with the worst regimes, has been an extremely successful Governor of a red-state growing jobs/improving education/raising teachers' salaries/raising wages and re-elected with 68% of the vote, is a former Energy Secretary -- one of the critical issues for at least 2 decades to come -- is pro-2nd Amendment, hails from the West... and, he also happens to be Latino.

Richardson fits beautifully Barack's theme of change, and unity.

Rendell

It looks like he's realized that now Obama can make him VP, not Clinton:

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell – one of Hillary Clinton’s strongest supporters – today warned her: “There’s no bargaining. You don’t bargain with the Presidential nominee. Even if you’re Hillary Clinton and you have 18 million votes, you don’t bargain.”

In an exclusive interview with NY1 Political Anchor Dominic Carter, Rendell added that Obama would have to be an “enormously big person” to pick Clinton as his running mate and that Clinton sometimes “couldn’t help but upstage” Obama on a joint ticket.

Rendell also said former President Bill Clinton could greatly complicate things if his wife was the Vice Presidential nominee.

“The Obama campaign would have to make strict rules, you know, about what President Clinton could and could not do during the campaign… For example, the Obama campaign would have to control his schedule; where he would go into, what states,” Rendell tells Carter.

“You know, normally politicians don’t want to be outshone. Well you know you’ve got Bill Clinton lurking in the background. But Hillary Clinton, a very charismatic figure for many Americans — generally a lot of politicians don’t like to put somebody like that on the ticket. You know rule one for the vice president is make sure you never upstage the president, right? It’s rule one. You know, Hillary Clinton in some ways couldn’t help but upstage, even if she was trying not to”

Nunn for VP?

He says he'd consider it. He's on my shortlist, but I like others better. There's plenty of time for that discussion another day.

Don't Pick Hillary

Hillary is interested in VP.

She brings nothing to the ticket. It would be doing her a favor. If she had quit before March, maybe. Not now. Obama doesn't owe her anything.

UPDATE: I fixed the link.