The vice presidential sweepstakes seems to be on the verge of ending. The two presidential candidates began the week at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback church in Southern California, where the biggest news was Senator McCain’s response to the when does life begin? question: at conception.
Incredibly, McCain seems somewhat serious about two possible pro-abortion rights running mates: former PA governor and Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge (Vietnam veteran like McCain and - like Governor Pawlenty below - with working-class roots) (tainted in my mind by his association not only with the (in some ways) botched war on terror but also with the Bush Administration - pictured below with President Bush); and (as I’ve previously observed) 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate and now independent Senator Joe Lieberman.
The McCain campaign has been floating both of these names, along with (several weeks ago) another elected official who (like Lieberman) happens to be Jewis: conservative Richmond (VA) suburbs Congressperson Eric Cantor (pictured below in a crowd). Supposedly still in the mix is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (pictured below traveling with McCain - apparently the two are getting along famously here, though they supposedly don't like each other).
I’m not convinced that any of these are real possibilities, and I'm also now not convinced about other people I’ve previously reported: LA Governor Bobby Jindal, who says he doesn’t want it, and FL Governor Charlie Crist, in the news this week with the FL tropical storm. I remain convinced that McCain will pick the host for the Republican National Convention: MN Governor Tim Pawlenty: working-class roots, solid with conservatives, a populist, successful in a Democratic-leaning state.
The crisis in Georgia apparently has Senator Obama looking away from Senator Clinton-supporting governors (PA’s Ed Rendell; OH’s Ted Strickland) to some of the Grand Old Men of the Senate, for their foreign policy expertise. Sam Nunn, once a militant homophobe and a President Clinton critic in the early 1990s; Republican Richard Lugar, a former progressive Indianapolis mayor and moderate Republican; and two of Obama’s erstwhile presidential nomination foes, Connecticut’s Chris Dodd (Lieberman’s Connecticut colleague in the Senate) (who got a favorable loan from mortgage crisis Countrywide Finance) and Delaware’s Joe Biden (who’s run twice for president). Nunn opposed both Iraq wars, but Biden has just returned from Georgia, and has been hitting Russia and McCain hard. Biden has both foreign policy credentials and seems OK with being attack dog. Other foreign-policy senators apparently still in the mix are another Republican, Iraq war foe Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and (like Hagel) another Vietnam era military veteran and Catholic, Jack Reed of Rhode Island. (It should be no surprise that the best picture I could find of Nunn - with Lugar - was from back in the early 1990s, right before he opposed President Clinton and "Don't ask, don't tell" (as too liberal)). (Also below this black and white picture: senators Biden, (unidentified), Hagel, and Lugar.)
Also apparently at the top of the list are others I’ve written about before: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius and IN Senator Evan Bayh. I like the idea of a young, good-looking, reformist Clinton-Gore-type ticket, and Bayh would fit the bill. Both he and Sibelius are, however, supposed to be lackluster on the campaign trail, and Bayh militantly supported the war, and his wife got lobbying fees that look perilously like payback for actions Bayh took as an elected official. (Ironically, she once worked for the company that essentially pays my salary: Eli Lilly.)
One or two of VA’s Big Three are apparently still on Obama’s list. I haven’t written about VA Governor Tom Kaine, former civil rights attorney, went to Honduras in the Peace Corps, fluent in Spanish, Catholic, personally opposed to both abortion and the death penalty. Even with his international experience, Kaine may be a little too green and with too little foreign policy experience. VA’s junior senator and sexist Jim Webb has supposedly taken himself out of the race, as has outgoing VA Governor Mark Warner, in line for a U.S. Senate seat, and now picked for the role that Obama had four years ago: Democratic National Convention keynote speaker. (Warner founded Nextel and managed the successful 1989 gubernatorial race of VA’s first African American governor, Doug Wilder, whose success may have presaged Obama’s. Senator Dodd was once Warner’s boss.) (The Big Three pictured below: Kaine, Webb, and Warner.)
The crisis in Georgia apparently has Senator Obama looking away from Senator Clinton-supporting governors (PA’s Ed Rendell; OH’s Ted Strickland) to some of the Grand Old Men of the Senate, for their foreign policy expertise. Sam Nunn, once a militant homophobe and a President Clinton critic in the early 1990s; Republican Richard Lugar, a former progressive Indianapolis mayor and moderate Republican; and two of Obama’s erstwhile presidential nomination foes, Connecticut’s Chris Dodd (Lieberman’s Connecticut colleague in the Senate) (who got a favorable loan from mortgage crisis Countrywide Finance) and Delaware’s Joe Biden (who’s run twice for president). Nunn opposed both Iraq wars, but Biden has just returned from Georgia, and has been hitting Russia and McCain hard. Biden has both foreign policy credentials and seems OK with being attack dog. Other foreign-policy senators apparently still in the mix are another Republican, Iraq war foe Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and (like Hagel) another Vietnam era military veteran and Catholic, Jack Reed of Rhode Island. (It should be no surprise that the best picture I could find of Nunn - with Lugar - was from back in the early 1990s, right before he opposed President Clinton and "Don't ask, don't tell" (as too liberal)). (Also below this black and white picture: senators Biden, (unidentified), Hagel, and Lugar.)
Also apparently at the top of the list are others I’ve written about before: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius and IN Senator Evan Bayh. I like the idea of a young, good-looking, reformist Clinton-Gore-type ticket, and Bayh would fit the bill. Both he and Sibelius are, however, supposed to be lackluster on the campaign trail, and Bayh militantly supported the war, and his wife got lobbying fees that look perilously like payback for actions Bayh took as an elected official. (Ironically, she once worked for the company that essentially pays my salary: Eli Lilly.)
One or two of VA’s Big Three are apparently still on Obama’s list. I haven’t written about VA Governor Tom Kaine, former civil rights attorney, went to Honduras in the Peace Corps, fluent in Spanish, Catholic, personally opposed to both abortion and the death penalty. Even with his international experience, Kaine may be a little too green and with too little foreign policy experience. VA’s junior senator and sexist Jim Webb has supposedly taken himself out of the race, as has outgoing VA Governor Mark Warner, in line for a U.S. Senate seat, and now picked for the role that Obama had four years ago: Democratic National Convention keynote speaker. (Warner founded Nextel and managed the successful 1989 gubernatorial race of VA’s first African American governor, Doug Wilder, whose success may have presaged Obama’s. Senator Dodd was once Warner’s boss.) (The Big Three pictured below: Kaine, Webb, and Warner.)
Still, I don’t believe some of the hype: the top three candidates I expect Obama to end up choosing one of: Mark Warner; NM Governor Bill Richardson (with his goatee) (with whom Obama campaigned earlier this week), Latino and with foreign policy credentials but with an outsider image now as a governor; and (yes) Senator Hillary Clinton. For once I agree with Ralph Nader. If Obama doesn’t pick Richardson or a man who says he doesn’t want it whom Obama has already made the convention keynote speaker (Warner), I think he’ll pick Senator Hillary Clinton.
-- Perry
-- Perry
1 comment:
Another possible Obama running mate bandied about several weeks ago - around the same time as Congressman Cantor, for Senator McCain, was Texas Congressman Chet Edwards, from Waco. Edwards represents President Bush's hometown of Crawford, Texas, and mounted a furious reelection campaign centered around an ad in support of the Child Health Insurance Program, in 2004, which was a year in which President Bush cleaned up in the presidential election in Texas.
The latest poll shows Senator Obama, for the first time, trailing Senator McCain. Possible voters even rated McCain as better at managing the economy - usually a Democratic strength and a McCain weakness. Even though Obama's campaign has been focusing for the long haul, partly on the "ground game" ("grassroots" local campaigning - get out the vote, etc.), this is still a bad sign. The only way Clinton-Gore won in 1992 (besides Ross Perot's candidacy reviving) was that the took a huge lead into the Democratic National Convention and then were able to weather the Republican attack machine assault long enough to eke out a win. We'll see if Obama gets a big bounce out of the vice presidential candidate announcement and the convention. It's hard to imagine a Democrat winning the presidency without taking a big lead in the polls into the convention. It is remotely possible that campaign finance rules - which have forced McCain to spend more this summer - mean that Obama is sitting on a lot more cash which he can unleash in the form of advertising (and more grassroots efforts) this fall. Is it possible that the GOP attack machine will run out of gas in the fall? National and international events - like the Russia-Georgia conflict - will not doubt play a role here too. P
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