Geppie for Veep
Mon, 05/12/2008 - 9:25am
Bill Kristol is like a never-ending experiment in hilarity.
While he's usually just making stuff up about Democrats or being wrong in general about foreign policy, he took an extra bold move this weekend and predicted that Barack Obama would choose former Missouri congressman and Democratic leader Dick Gephardt as his running mate.
Now, I like Gephardt and everything — really, who doesn't, he's awesome — but this idea really seems to come hurtling out of left field with a quickness. The projections of possible VP choices are usually either obvious or silly, but this one is just... well, weird, I guess.
I wasn't expecting to hear his name as a potential running mate this year or any year going forward. Am I wrong? What do you think, Geppie for Veep? Or should we go straight to Bill Bradley? Would you take the shooting guard against the Eagle Scout / businessman?
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A viable choice
By Lorenzo Sadun
Mon, 05/12/2008 - 11:23am
Obama needs somebody with gravitas, to mute the criticism of Obama's lack of experience. He needs somebody with ties to the Clinton wing of the party -- not necessarily to Clinton herself, but to Midwestern working-class white voters and to Hispanic voters. He needs somebody who doesn't have a lot of enemies. He needs somebody who would help him in an important swing state. Gephardt does fine on all counts except Hispanic appeal.
I'm not saying he'll be chosen. Richardson (my favorite), Strickland, Biden, Sebelius and Napolitano all have pluses that Gephardt doesn't. But he deserves to be on the short list.
No shooting guards, please. Bradley's main appeal is to the liberal intellectual base that Obama already has locked down.
Gephardt revisited
By Josh Berthume
Mon, 05/12/2008 - 2:16pm
After I ran this, not too few people said "What's wrong with Gephardt, it makes perfect sense!" which is true — Gephardt is awesome and is more or less the mold in which most candidates would look for a VP this year. What surprised me is that I haven't really heard anyone haul him out as a VP possibility before Krystol said something about it.
(Although it would be hard for our readers to know that since I failed to mention it completely.)
So, Gephardt makes sense and fits the best-practice profile. But I was surprised to hear his name specifically, and to hear it out of Bill Krystol.