Just the other day (okay, a month and a half ago) I was having an off-the-record conversation with an extremely influential leader of the netroots community. How influential? Let me put it this way: Without him, there would be no Ned Lamont.
Given that triumph, we naturally wanted to know whom he thought Barack Obama should choose as vice president. I thought Bill Bradley would be a pretty good choice, and still do. Other people at our table believed that Obama needed to reach out to some Democratic elder statesmen or military man, both of which made sense to me. But my netroots friend looked at us like we were crazy. Obviously, there was only one man for the job. One electrifying figure who would capture the imagination of a generation of new voters, kick over the electoral map like a board game at an anger management retreat, and turn the 21st century on its ear, whatever that means. That man is:
Bill Richardson.
Now, I'm probably not the right person to assess Bill Richardson as a game changer, because I always get him mixed up with Sandy Berger. Also, I thought Netroots might be having us on. So I let it go.
(I've also heard that Bill Richardson is a scandal waiting to happen, since he's a sex machine with all the chicks. But, again, I might be thinking of Berger.)
Anyway, I've been asking around, and here's the general thinking on what Obama needs in a Vice President:
A Military Background
So Obama doesn't get totally marginalized when we start bombing Iran in October.
Conservative
To balance his wife, Angela Davis.
Southern
So he can compete for the hardworking racists of Hillary's Appalachia.
Hispanic
Because there's nothing wrong with pandering identity politics when nice people do it.
A Woman
See above -- "Hispanic"
Older than Time Itself
Because Barack Obama is only five years old.
Jim Webb gets you "military" and "conservative." And "loose cannon," if we want to go toe-to-toe with McCain for the crazy bully vote. But he's not old enough.
Sam Nunn? I guess he's old. And he is a creep. There's that. But why would he do it? He's already been President in his head.
Bill Richardson is Hispanic, and held many, many, many jobs in the Clinton administration, none of which immediately come to mind.
Wesley Clark? I like Wesley Clark, but he's attached to Hillary Clinton like visible panty lines.
Kathleen Sebelius? There's no such thing as Kathleen Sebelius. I checked.
I know it sounds hopeless, but it's not. Obama just needs a running mate who's old, Hispanic, southern, female and enjoys state-sponsored violence, especially war.
Two words:
Eva. Peron.
I know what you're going to say: Eva Peron can't be vice president -- she was born in Argentina. Relax. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. It won't be an issue.
And now you're going to say: "But Chris, isn't Eva Paron a waxy corpse, borne crazily from place to place by its fanatical followers?" Again, we'll be running against McCain.
--
Not only was Eva Peron a woman, but she was also a Broadway musical. That means Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd will have to fight over who gets to compare her to Hillary. Bonus!
Eva Peron would insulate Obama from being soft on terror. It would be easy for that ticket to play the terror by association card as Argentina was a neighbor during the original 9-11 of Chile in 1973 when Pinochet (with the help of the CIA and ITT) terrorized the country while Milton Friedman's Chicago School of economists busily worked on the a bible or brick of economic shock therapy to be put in place to privatize and plunder Chile. It's not really that different a worldview than Blackwater, so America should be ready for it.
the column and the posts
but go back to school,
where are we headed; what will probably happen; what is the worst that could happen???
you are all missing the obvious best pick
fortunately Obama is smarter than all of you and probably has him near the top of the list
you know, all of the speculating is moot, because Obama must have good chemistry with his vp and only he can evaluate that
and there is one issue where this candidate could be an achilles heel or a gift from god depending on whether he's strong enough to embrace the obvious
enough clues for now
(oh, it's not one of the Manning Brothers)
(see Kathy Geier's take on him: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/ixnay_on_the_ebbway.php.
As for Richardson, I've heard the Clinton camp's vetting concluded that he was an inveterate cigar-chomping skirt chaser...).
I think Obama should ask Gore. Who else could better help us address the global climate crisis and transition into an energy-independent, carbon-neutral economy?
ROFLMAO!
The only reasonable argument I here against Hillary is that she's old-politics. That's bull. She's not her husband. She's only been an elected politician for 8 years. She's her own person. She didn't commit perjury. She's not disbarred. She didn't "just inhale". She's had a few gaffes like the Bosnia thing, but I don't see the evidence to suggest that she's the kind of natural liar that Bill might be.
In such a close primary, she's earned the offer. Give it to her.
Her negatives were abysmal before she made a caracture of herself - as the Tonya Harding/Fatal Attraction candidate.
I can't even imagine what her negatives are now that she tossed the kitchen sink and everything else in the house - stooped lower than low, tried to cheat, refuses to admit defeat, has no shame or ethics whatsoever, panders to racists as though it were acceptable, and stokes her man hating faux feminists into irational states of truly frightening rage that cannot have anything to do with elections.
Half the populace thinks she is seriously mentally ill, a megalomanical ar agressive narcissistic sociopath, and the rest think she is WORSE than Bush for tactics, lying and cheating.
TOXIC.
She has earned nothing, but hopefully a swift kick out of the democratic party, for undermining the nominee and promoting the republican the way she has.
I could make a good case that Bill's mouth has cost Senator Clinton the nomination. If she couldn't keep him muzzled during a primary campaign, how will she keep him in line if she's VP? Answer: she won't - not because she doesn't want to but because she can't, such is the level of his narcissism.
Lili von Shtupp
Enough of the schtupping, let's get on with the election
In addition to experience -- executive (governor); federal (congress, Secy of Energy); foreign policy (Ambassador to UN, Foreign Relations Committee staff, State Dept. w/ Nixon/Kissinger); the list goes on -- he's smart (multilingual) and brings balance, balance, balance.
I've actually posted some of that information before. Think the ticket's a winner.
There are so many names that would be good: Bill Richardson, Chuck Hagel, Claire McCaskill, John Edwards, etc. Of course, the real key is how well they would work together. If we really were going to pull a woman from the grave to run for VP, I would want Ann Richards, the first victim of the Rove smear machine and the loss that marked the beginning of the disaster that is George Bush.
Bring us one more state, VP. That's all that matters in picking the VP. And it's why Hillary makes no sense on the ticket.
Forget the symbolic VP candidate. Forget appeals to women or Hispanics in general. Select someone with the political machinery to deliver precious electoral votes that can put you over the top.
That points you in the direction of a Richardson (NM), Strickland (OH), Casey or Rendell (PA), Bayh (IN). Some were Clinton supporters. If it helps heal bridges, that's nice, but it's secondary. Show me your electoral votes!