I just watched Meet The Press and the guests were Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and Claire McCaskill, the Democratic Senator from Missouri. Both are considered possible V.P. choices for McCain and Obama. Just as Obama and McCain have stark differences, these two women are also like night and day. Whereas McCaskill comes off as being a motherly mid-western conservative, Fiorina strikes me as New Yorkish, untamed, and pro-choice, even though McCaskill is a Democrat supporting Obama and Fiorina a Republican supporting McCain.
No doubt that both are smart enough for the job as V.P. and it would be highly entertaining to watch these two women debate. Clearly, Claire with more political experience is better at saying the right things and making better points. Carly has her moments, but mostly she stated the same thing over and over “Obama will raise your taxes”, even though Claire was thorough in her answers about how Obama would only raise taxes for the tiniest sliver of 2% of Americans that make over $200,000/year, and not the majority of tax-payers and middle-income workers. And when Carly referred to McCain taking the economy back to the “boom years”, Claire was quick to point out that a democrat was in office at that time.
I’ve heard Carly a lot lately, on NPR and other news programs and she seems to really be after the V.P. position, but she won’t say so directly. Is that because McCain has not been talking to her about it? I wonder. When asked if she would run as veep, Claire didn’t hide her enthusiasm and said she was honored to be mentioned, but wouldn’t discuss details since Obama’s campaign had asked her to not disclose any information regarding their discussions.
Carly also seems to be getting herself into trouble with seemingly pro-choice statements like this one: “A real, live example, which I’ve been hearing a lot about from women: There are many health insurance plans that will cover Viagra but won’t cover birth-control medication. Those women would like a choice”. McCain had a pregnant-pause when asked about this statement. Of course when McCain couldn’t remember how he voted on abortion, one of the top five issues he has to vote on, Carly wouldn’t come out and say whether or not she is pro-choice. She did say her comments were not in code, and that she only meant that women would like a choice in health care plans.
I myself am astounded and appalled that there are health insurance companies that don’t cover birth control. News to me.
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McCain will NEVER choose a running mate who isn’t unequivocally anti-choice. The right already doesn’t trust him, and that would only make it worse. Too bad, it’d be fun to watch the Republicans rip each other to shreds over the issue at the convention and then through to November.
Neither McCaskill or Fiorina. Based on my research over the past few days, I believe that Obama’s choice will be either Evan Bayh, Tim Kaine, or Kathleen Sebelius. Of course, I could be completely wrong.