Back to the VP candidates.
And in this corner, we have Obama’s potential picks:
1) Let’s start with Hillary. Nah, nevermind. Take her off the list. Sorry Clinton supporters–you’ll get over it.
2) Edwards. As someone on my Harry Chapin Politics Yahoo Group wrote: “…let’s face it, he didn’t do a great job with it in ‘04.” Yeah, remember he attacked Dick Cheney for having a lesbian daughter? Because, as Democrats, we want people to feel bad about having a gay family member? awhaat?
3) Bill Richardson. Hispanic and well-qualified. Still, he seems too MALE for my taste.
4) Joe Biden. This guy is a real card. I enjoyed watching him debate with the other presidential candidates. He would make a fun VP.
5) Wesley Clarke. Military and anti-war. Certainly would help the case for pulling our troops out of Iraq. But I can’t think of other positive attributes.
6) Kathleen Sebelius. She’s the Kansan Governor. Proven leadership. Female. Has been supporting Obama since the beginning. Could reign in disgruntled Clinton supporters. Ohio and Michigan roots. I can’t think of any strikes against her. She also appears to have accomplished quite a bit as governor, winning the 2nd election by a vote of 53% to 45%.
7) Tom Daschle. Famous for being targeted in the anthrax scare, Daschle has YEARS of Senate experience, which in my humble opinion, makes him a liability.
8. Chuck Hagel. An anti-war Republican. Staunch Republicans are going to vote for McCain (Bush), no matter what. It’s the independents and folk who normally vote Republican for tax reasons (libertarians) Obama could have inroads with. Does anyone out there know where he stands on taxes and what his voting record is like? I’d Google it, but I’m being lazy today.
One of my readers (I have readers! er, i mean friends) also pointed out Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Governor, and Brian Schweitzer, the Montana Governor, as potential picks.
Kerry might have been President if he’d selected Napolitano (what a fun name to say!) as his running mate, instead of Edwards. She has ties to Pittsburgh, PA, New York, New Mexico, and the Clintons. She also was an early Obama endorser.
While researching candidates I remembered Carol Mosley-Braun, the African American who ran in 2004, and it appears that she has launched her own organic line of foods, Ambassador Organics. What a stately name. She’s pretty smart, but made some controversial remarks, which proves she’s a real, thinking, feeling person. Anyway, I don’t think she’s on Obama’s short list.
I guess the odds of any of the aforementioned being chosen will depend on who McCain picks as his running mate.
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Jami,
As I told you once on the Chapin list, it was John KERRY who made the remark about Cheney having a lesbian daughter, not John Edwards. Also, it was only an “attack” in the sense that he was attacking Cheney’s bigotry. I don’t see why we shouldn’t attack bigotry.
And before anybody calls me an Edwards partisan, I am the one who said he “didn’t do a great job with it in ‘04″ in the first place.
no, it was edwards during the debate with cheney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cheney#2004_Presidential_re-election_campaign
bigotry is wrong, if you’re doing something wrong. having a lesbian daughter isn’t doing something wrong. supporting anti-gay policy could be, but lots of gays are republicans and support those same policies, like cheney’s daughter. i would think that edwards could have found something else to attack him on. like, say for example, lying us into a war in which he profited from?
and, yes, that’s exactly what i said that you said, “he didn’t do a great job with it in “04″ in the first place.”
Having a lesbian daughter certainly isn’t doing anything wrong. Perhaps that’s why neither Edwards nor Kerry ever said it was.
No, but they pointed it out specifically, strategically, and politically so that it might make Cheney look “bad” to his Republican, Christian, and anti-gay voters. If they wanted to point out bigotry, they could have said 10,000 other things about Cheney. My point here is that Edwards/Kerry did not do anything positive by mentioning it–Cheney didn’t lose votes over it, and they didn’t gain any. That’s the whole reason for a debate (to point out the positive things about yourself, and the negatives about the opponent, so that the public can make an “informed” decision, tell for themselves who’s lying through their teeth, and decipher who best represents their beliefs and values).
Two Washington Post articles on the Veepstakes:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/06/veep_stakes_the_will_he_or_won.html
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/06/the_case_for_kathleen_sebelius.html?nav=rss_blog
I disagree about why they did it. The right already knew about Cheney’s daughter being gay – it was never a secret at any time that I know of, and certainly not since long before he became VP – and surely Kerry and Edwards knew they weren’t going to be getting too many votes from right-wing Christians.
I believe they brought it up as a way of demonstrating how unfair the laws Bush and Cheney were advocating really were…they even affected a member of Cheney’s immediate family. That would never make Cheney look “bad” to right wing Christians – far from it. It would – and did – make him look bad to swing voters who are not homophobic, as well it should.
And even if your interpretation is right, that’s still not “attacking Cheney for having a gay daughter.”
you’re right–maybe the word I should have used is “heckling”.