Obama’s Vice President Open Thread
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Veep
Let’s hear who and why. And yes, that includes Hillary.
The floor is yours!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Veep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Richardson. Helps on foreign policy and executive experience, maybe helps to build bridges to Latino Clinton-supporters.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Mike Gravel.
Just kidding. I’d say Joe Biden actually.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Biden’s a strong choice, but I wonder if he mightn’t be better as a cabinet pick — State or National Security.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Harold Ford Jr. VP; with Rob Paul Sec. Treasury; Dave Ramsey Sec. Commerce
May 13th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I could go for Richardson. See above for reasons to which I agree.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Richardson, for reasons mentioned above (plus, I kinda like the guy). Jim Webb or Wesley Clark, maybe, to shore up his credentials on defence.
Maybe Mike Huckabee, to defuse the Wright scandal and show how serious he is about reaching across the aisle. :-)
May 13th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Chuck Hagel retiring Republican senator from Nebraska would be an excellent choice.
Jim Webb, Republican senator from Virginia.
Dark horse guesses would be Sarah Palin Republican Governor Alaska or Ted Strickland, Governor of Ohio.
I would suggest that Senator Obama will pick a Republican, in the mold of either a reformer, a veteran or from a battle ground state like Ohio or Florida.
In any event they must be able to fit in to his campaign of bringing the country together.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I could see Richardson. My ideal, “Platonic” veep pick for Obama would be an Anglo governor who is perhaps slightly, but only slightly, to the right of Obama. Also, I think the veep pick could be a woman, but not Hillary — not so much because she is his opponent, but because I don’t think we need another ticket of two Senators. I don’t know of any white women governors who are slightly-to-the-right Democrats, though, so Richardson is about as good as I can suggest.
Sarah Palin had come to mind, too, but I believe she is pregnant and has ruled herself out of anybody’s veep position this time, Republican or Democrat.
I’ve heard Ed Rendell’s name floated, too, and maybe, although I think that would mean a summer and fall full of hearing Rendell’s pro-Clinton comments from the primary, and that would drown out any hope of focusing on how Rendell’s inclusion could be a unifying action. A maybe slightly less prominent Hillary backer could work, though.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Barbara Boxer.
Bob “I can get you Florida” Graham
I also like the thought of Richardson.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Anyone out there thinking about Sebelius? I’ve heard her mentioned, but I know almost nothing about her.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Hagel, you get the military experience, the unity of the GOP moderates, and you get the white people to join up
May 13th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Chuck Hagel or Clair McCaskill - either would be great. Hillary would stab Obama in the Back and Bill is a loose cannon, and her negative commnts would only hurt
May 13th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Either governor Sebelius or Napolitano. Both are popular, charismatic governors in red states, bring experience to the ticket, are prominent Obama supporters, and most importantly would help mend fences with white women over 50. People keep saying that Obama has a “problem” wooing white voters, but I see that as a false argument; he won the white male vote overall in PA. However–and I feel this is the great underreported story of the campaign–in most of these primaries around 50% more women voted than men, thus giving Hillary a comfortable lead among white voters overall. As such, it only makes sense to court the female vote more aggressively than the male vote. The female turnout’s always been higher than the male turnout anyway, but if there’s actually a woman on the ticket expect that disparity to increase somewhat dramatically.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Richardson
Richardson
Richardson
We’ll win Texas… and can forget about WV….
May 14th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Richardson for VP. Biden’s a smart guy and more than qualified, but it won’t sell. Chuck Hagel as SecDef. Too many Democrats are worried about Obama putting a Republican in as VP, thus enabling a GOP run for the White House in 2016 by Obama’s own guy. Personally, I’ve love to see Hagel run for president, and I’d almost certainly vote for him if he did, but right now Obama definitely needs to avoid Democratic defections.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am
As much as I’d like to see Hagel as VP, it won’t happen… not in the era of DailyKos and MoveOn.org as huge party players. The VP is going to need to have a (D) after his name, the only possible exceptions to that would be the independents Michael Bloomberg and Lincoln Chafee. A conservative democrat is plausible such as Bob Casey, Evan Bayh or Ben Nelson, but not a conservative republican like Hagel (he is very conservative on domestic issues).
May 15th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Why would Obama want to put a republican or even Bloomberg on his ticket? Makes no sense. Republicans are going to vote for McCain not Obama and a half baked conservative. His best move actually is Hillary. She brings aboad (most of ) her supporters including working class whites who might opt out or vote for McCain. She also has strong foreign policy credentials. Plus as candidate for vice president, she does all the pit bull dirty politics things that are necessary in a campaign while Obama gets to stay on the high road. One in office, if Obama is the supurb political operative his supporters say he is, he should have no trouble marginalizng Clinton the same way Kennedy was able to marginalize LBJ in 1961. Jim Webb hates campaigning and is not much good at it. Any of the people who dropped out before it became a two person race would be excellent vp material
May 15th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Here’s what the veep cannot be:
1. A woman if it’s not Hillary - that would be a middle finger to all the Hillary supporters. He won’t piss them off like that. No way.
2. Black - I mean really. One step at a time, folks.
3. Nice - He needs an attack dog to do the dirty work - so not John Edwards who sucked in the 04 debates against Cheney or Bill Richardson who comes off as pandering and a little mealy mouthed.
4. A loose cannon - so Biden is out (and Richardson again). Obama doesn’t need another loose lipper in his camp.
5. A Republican - Way too many down-sides. That’ll prove to the “non-college-educated” base that he’s got a screw loose, and that maybe he has ulterior motives. Besides the Republican brand image is crap right now. Never gonna happen.
It’s either gonna be some white guy with military cred - probably a governor - or it’s Hillary. I think she’s making a pretty good case for herself. Don’t count her out.