“The symbolism of all this to average swing voters just seems to me too powerful to pass up. The GOP is going to hang the elitist tag on Obama, as they’ve always done in recent elections. It’s worked in the last two elections, and it might well work in this one. But it stands far less a chance of working if Obama has this ruddy-faced, shit-kicking, pugnacious, southern white guy standing next to him vouching for him.” The Guardian Michael Tomasky makes the case for a Vice-President Webb, while The Prospect‘s Ezra Klein (he should stay in the Senate), Slate‘s Tim Noah (he’s too volatile), and The Atlantic‘s James Fallows (he’d hate the gig) demur.
Update: Webb aside, Sen. Kent Conrad leaks that the Obama campaign is currently floating a list of twenty or so names for veep. He “told CNN that some of those on the list are ‘top officials now,’ others are ‘former lawmakers’ and others are ‘former top military leaders.‘”
At the moment, I count myself in the “against” camp for Webb — I don’t like ticket-balancing, as it basically amounts to Obama admitting that he has a problem with national-security and blue-collar credibility when confidence is a much better route to take. Webb also has a real women’s issues problem, and that is a hornet’s nest that requires absolutely NO additional kicking in this election. For the moment, I’m leaning towards Kathleen Sebelius, but I’m open to suggestions.
I have no idea, but I think the women’s issues thing could be a problem, especially since you still have asshats like Paul Krugman going around saying Hillary lost because of misogyny.
I don’t know much about Webb, other than that he was the special guest on “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” this past week, and he seemed pretty cool…
I’d say Gov. Sebelius was an excellent choice, if it weren’t for her seeming so dull in the Democratic SotU response in January. But, then again, those responses are always dull, Webb’s in 2007 excepted.