There are five potential vice-president picks that I would be enthusiastic about, there are five that I could live with, there are four that I’d be disappointed about, and there are two that would just plain piss me off. Let me explain.
The Good Picks
1. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius- If Obama can open up a decent gender gap, he can cruise to victory and open up avenues for downticket upsets all across the country. Rarely have we had a female prospect as strong as Sebelius. She is a staunchly pro-choice Catholic with roots in the Cincinnati area. She is a very popular red-state governor. She has executive experience and a record of working across party lines. There are no candidates that better fit in with Obama’s post-partisan brand. We don’t need a national-security running mate that a la Dick Cheney mainly serves to highlight Obama’s thin resume on those issues. We need someone that reinforces his style of governance.
2. Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed- Sen. Reed is a soft-spoken veteran of the 82nd Airborne that serves on the Armed Services Committee. He has the kind of military bearing that Wesley Clark so conspicuously lacks, but he also has one of the best voting records of any member of the Senate. He won’t upstage Obama, even on national security, but he will help provide a comfort level that the Obama administration will be well-led. Reed is a staunchly pro-choice Catholic with a 4-star personal story. His father was a World War Two vet who made his living as a janitor and whose son earned a spot at West Point and went on to get a Harvard Law Degree and become a U.S. Senator. Jack Reed is like a more progressive, more accomplished, more inspirational version of Rep. Patrick Murphy.
3. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown- Sen. Brown is a freshman or he would be higher on my list. As a former member of the House Progressive Caucus, he is the most ideologically desirable member on this list. Brown has a rough, workingman’s gravelly voice and is a champion of labor unions and the lower middle class. His main attraction, however, is his ability to deliver not just Ohioan votes, but the most needed kind of Ohioan votes. The main knocks on Brown are his lack of experience and the perception that is too liberal. I’d be happy to take our chances.
4. Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd- I’m hearing rumblings that Dodd is out of the running, but he is a very attractive choice who has a few strong downsides. No one was a stronger voice on FISA than Chris Dodd. He is another staunchly pro-choice Catholic. He’s fluent in Spanish. No one can dispute his experience. A history of carousing as a younger man and the recent revelations that he enjoyed some seeming preferential terms on a home mortgage (while serving as chair of the Banking Committee) make him somewhat of a risk. He’s also getting up in age, he doesn’t make any obvious contribution to the Electoral College, and the Republican governor of Connecticut would appoint his replacement. I’d be personally honored to go into battle with Chris Dodd, but there are enough negatives to push him down the list.
5. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer- Schweitzer is running for reelection. His selection as running mate would throw the Montana gubernatorial race into turmoil. He also lacks foreign policy experience and would enter Washington as an inveterate outsider (for good and ill). Yet, better than any other candidate, Schweitzer’s candidacy would announce the arrival of the Democrat’s intention to rebrand themselves as the party of Civil Libertarian-Democrats. If we want to isolate the Republicans to the Deep South and Border States, this is the pick to further that goal.
Picks I Could Live With
6. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine- There has been some pushback from the Netroots about the candidacy of Tim Kaine. His positions on abortion rights are lukewarm at best. For progressives, he has been a disappointment as Governor. But he could help deliver an important state and he is ultimately a pro-choice Catholic. He brings executive experience and few negative narratives from the national press. He’s fluent in Spanish and has a Harvard Law Degree. He has roots in Minnesota and Missouri. He was also an early endorser of Barack Obama. I would have certain misgivings about a Kaine selection but he’d be a good measure better than Lloyd Bentsen or Joe Lieberman.
7. Former Majority Leader Tom Daschle- South Dakota is not polling as competitively as North Dakota, and it only has three Electoral College votes. Nevertheless, the selection of Daschle could make the Dakotas riper for Democratic takeover. But the argument for Daschle isn’t based on Electoral College votes. It’s based on his position as the leader of the anti-Clinton faction within the Democratic Party. Without Daschle’s network, Obama never would have stood a chance of winning the nomination. And, while Daschle’s selection would bring a certain comfort level inside the Beltway, the main argument in his favor is not what he can do for Obama in the race, but how valuable he could be to him once in office. Daschle has excellent relations on the Hill and all over Washington DC. Remember how the early Clinton administration stumbled within the DC culture and was forced to bring in David Gergen for damage control? Daschle is mainly an insurance policy against a repeat of those missteps.
8. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson- Richardson has too much baggage and too many skeletons in the closet. But he is Hispanic. He would probably lock-up New Mexico for Obama and help in every state with a significant Latino population. He does have sterling foreign affairs experience. The main tag on Richardson is the risk. And, despite his outsider reputation, he’s way too much of an inside-the-box thinker. Richardson, more than any other candidate on this list, needs to be thoroughly vetted.
9. Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry- Henry won reelection with a stunning 66% of the vote in one of the most conservative states in the country. At 45, he is very young, which could reinforce Barack Obama’s theme of change. The main argument in his favor is a combination of the kind of brand-reinforcement he’d get from Sebelius and the kind of regional balance that JFK and Dukakis sought in selecting the Texans LBJ and Lloyd Bentsen. The party doesn’t really need regional reinforcement though, as there just isn’t any Electoral College need for it at present. The selection of Henry would probably be ill-received by several Democratic constituencies, and not without good reason. But I could live with it and it would help Andrew Rice in his senate race against Jim Inhofe.
10. General Wesley Clark- I have always been a Wesley Clark skeptic. For some reason I just don’t find him to be very general-like. I don’t think he brings the gravitas on military matters that many Democrats think that he does. I don’t like the idea of generals becoming politicians and I don’t think Clark brings any significant constituency with him. Maybe he could make Arkansas more competitive, but I doubt it. That being said, I don’t really have any strong objection to Clark and have no ideological reason to oppose him. The fact that he is widely seen as a member of Team Clinton is probably a plus, since it would appease at least a fraction of their most ardent supporters. If Obama selected Clark I would kind of scratch my head wondering why, but I could live with it.
Four That I’d be Disappointed About
11. Fmr. Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee- Chafee was the only Republican senator to vote against the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq. And he has come straight out and endorsed Barack Obama. There could be real value in selecting a former Republican as a running mate and Chafee would reinforce the idea that the GOP is essentially dead in the Northeast. But Chafee has a striking lack of any sense of command. He does not elicit any sense of real leadership. Chafee’s meek demeanor argues against selecting him as a running mate.
12. Delaware Senator Joe Biden- Biden is a pro-choice Catholic with valuable roots in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area. I hear he is now the front-runner for the VP position. I have always liked Joey Biden more than most of my progresive colleagues, but he has diarrhea of the mouth. He shares this fault with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. Biden is qualified and he is smart as a tack. But he has left too much ammunition lying around from all his media appearances. I have some qualms about Biden’s judgments, but I have more qualms about his reliability. Biden is too risky.
13. Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel- Hagel would be immensely valuable as a spokesman but his selection would send an unambiguous message of desperation. If Hagel is selected, Obama might win a huge victory, but he’ll send the message that he has no confidence in the ascendancy of progressive ideas.
14. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell- Rendell has size 13 sneakers permanently embedded in his mouth. Never trust a man like Rendell to stay on message.
Two That Would Piss Me Off
15. Indiana Senator Evan Bayh- This is the nadir, or apogee, of betrayal. Bayh can probably deliver Indiana which makes him very attractive. But here is what Hunter S. Thompson said about Tom Eagleton, and I think it applies to Evan Bayh:
“It struck me as a cheap and unnecessary concession to the pieced-off ward-heeler syndrome that McGovern had been fighting all along. Tom Eagleton was exactly the kind of VP candidate that Muskie or Humphrey would have chosen: a harmless, Catholic, neo-liberal Rotarian nebbish from one of the border states, who presumably wouldn’t make waves. A ‘progressive young centrist’ with more ambition than brains: Eagleton would have run with anybody.”
16. New York Senator Hillary Clinton- no comment required.
I hope Obama picks someone from the first two sets of candidates.
