Obama's Running Mate

[Aethix 0]

* Grr, I seriously dislike some aspects of this site because it's so difficult to find a good place to put new threads sometimes *

Ref link


So it's all but guaranteed that Obama will be the Democratic nominee. The real question now is who will be his running mate for the Vice Presidency. The above link article links a few possible nominations.

I'm not going to reference them all, but I am going to point out who I think is his better options and explain a little on why I think the way I do.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, 63, of Arkansas. As NATO commander, Clark oversaw the allied air war against Serbia that toppled dictator Slobodan Milosevic. He also ran for the nomination in 2004 and won a primary in Oklahoma.
Downside: He had testy relations with other military officers that could come back to haunt him, and his political experience is thin.

Back in 2004 General Clark was a very strong force, even with his lack of many wins his % of votes was always high compared to the other candidates. The average supporter of General Clark was the white collared working class ( what Hillary Clinton has a strong hold on now ) and people who typically wanted to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible, but under good circumstances. His views are very similar to Obama's but his additional pull with military organizations and the white collard workers could definitely help push Obama into the presidency, but also help him accomplish his goals once Obama becomes president.

and then there is

Sen. Joe Biden, 65, of Delaware. With 36 years in the Senate and much of it spent on the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden has long experience in foreign policy circles. "He'd rather be secretary of state, but he'd accept it," said a Biden adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Downside: He may misspeak, a tendency he has.

Senator Biden is in my opinion one of the more likely candidates, but the only issue I see holding him back is that he really is the complete opposite of what Obama is all about, "change" He has 36 years in the Senate and has many connections to help get things done.

My actual hopes , but not listed here because he has publically announced he has no intentions of running for Vice President again, is Senator Edwards. He fully supports Obama, and in my opinion is one of the few candidates that could actually handle the job of President. So what do you guys think?

[mikeyboy63 0]

I think John Edwards is a great choice. I really think that they both care about the people who need the most help. I also like Wesley Clark to give Obama a military man as a running mate. I don't know how he'd hold up debating the Republican VP candidate, though. Debating isn't his forte.Obama may very well go for a female Governor. Several have been mentioned in the media. I don't know if it's a good idea, though. A black President is asking a lot of racist Americans. To also have a woman on the ticket might cause too many people to go into the voting booth and quietly vote for McCain. A black man AND a woman? This country is too backwards to vote for that ticket. Sorry to say, but true.I vote for Edwards. He's popular with many of Hillary's supporters. The southern accent will help Obama in the south.

[kudmus 0]

It's so interesting none of u guys think he should take Clinton. Don't youj think the Obama-Clinton combination is a powerful front that will easily bring McCain to his knees? Especially considering the influence Bill is going to give to the voters. I really think this Obama guy is smart very smart. I ran into the following blog by Dana Blankenhorn & Paula Rooney titled The Obama Party and the Googlization of politics and think u guys will be interrested in reading this:

Barack Obama is the Google of modern American politics.
MyBarackObama and Google share strengths and, perhaps, weaknesses.

I just described Googles problem with the ASP loophole. By supporting the loophole Google maintains its proprietary advantage but risks losing friends in the open source community. This is a loss it can bear.

It can bear the loss because its immense infrastructure allows it independence from this kind of community pressure. It can act autonomously, in its own interest, when that interest conflicts with others ideology.

Barack Obama is doing essentially the same thing, as Marc Ambinder wrote on The Atlantics blog recently.

Google is Evil, from Scroogled and TechRepublics GeekEndOver at Hullaballoo, liberal blogger dday calls the result
The Obama Party:

Hes building a new Democratic infrastructure, regimenting it under his brand, and enlisting new technologies and more sophisticated voter contacting techniques to turn it from a normal Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort into a lasting movement.

The long-term goal is to subvert the traditional structures of the Democratic Party since the early 1990s, subvert the nascent structures that the progressive movement has been building since the late 1990s, and build a parallel structure, under his brand, that will become the new power center in American politics.

VoteVets screen capture from 2004 adJust as with Google and open source, Obamas is not a bottom-up strategy, as Matt Stoller notes at OpenLeft. Stoller says Obama is deliberately isolating long-standing progressive groups like VoteVets (left, from one of their 2004 ads) and Progressive Media.

Unlike John McCain and Hillary Clinton, in other words, Barack Obama has not been doing calls with bloggers, or working hand-in-glove with groups like Moveon.org. He is building a first-class technical infrastructure that replaces everyone elses and owes its loyalty strictly to him.

His sites are becoming Google-like in their power, and Google-like in their autonomy from the movements which spawned them.

Stoller worries this may prove to be a mistake:

When the Swift Boaters come back, and they will, its all on Obama and his movement to hit back. Hes betting that he can strip power from their base just as he stripped power from the old Washington way of doing politics within the Democratic Party.

Eric Schmidt and Barack Obama from 2007 Google interviewIn other words just as Googles infrastructure allows it to act independently of the open source movement which it claims to champion, so Barack Obamas infrastructure enables the same with regards the progressive movement he claims to champion.

What that portends I cannot say. What do you think it portends, in both cases?

[Aethix 0]

It's so interesting none of u guys think he should take Clinton. Don't youj think the Obama-Clinton combination is a powerful front that will easily bring McCain to his knees? Especially considering the influence Bill is going to give to the voters. I really think this Obama guy is smart very smart. I ran into the following blog by Dana Blankenhorn & Paula Rooney titled The Obama Party and the Googlization of politics and think u guys will be interrested in reading this:

Clinton is one that would most likely help him dominate McCain, but she is almost completely the opposite of Obama. She doesn't represent change, and is the epitome of corruption in politics. I think it would be a desperate act for Obama to have to select Clinton as a running mate, and I think he will fairly easily defeat McCain in the election ( this coming from a conservative ).

If was in Obamas situation I don't think I could allow her to be my Vice President. I feel that she is the type of person who could / would set up an assassination so that she could be placed in that position. I know it's terrible to think of it that way, but I would much rather be safe then sorry.

[mikeyboy63 0]

Clinton is one that would most likely help him dominate McCain, but she is almost completely the opposite of Obama. She doesn't represent change, and is the epitome of corruption in politics. I think it would be a desperate act for Obama to have to select Clinton as a running mate, and I think he will fairly easily defeat McCain in the election ( this coming from a conservative ).
If was in Obamas situation I don't think I could allow her to be my Vice President. I feel that she is the type of person who could / would set up an assassination so that she could be placed in that position. I know it's terrible to think of it that way, but I would much rather be safe then sorry.

I don't know if she'd have him shot, but I could see her pushing him under the bus, figuratively if not literally. She could deliberately try to sabotage his administration to kill his chances of winning the nomination in 2012. Rarely does a sitting President fail to win the (re)nomination, but sometimes the party puts tons of pressure on a politician to not seek reelection.

It looks like John Edwards doesn't want to be VP. I'd draft him and force him to turn it down. Few other politicians believe in change.

[cangor 0]

Though I'm conservative... well, libertarian at least, which means I don't like a lot of stuff about the democratic party OR the republican party... well, anyway, I actually really wish John Edwards had gotten the nomination and I think he'd make a great vice-presidential running mate. In any case, at this point, who Obama chooses as his running mate is going to make or break him in this election. To understand this we have to look at things from a much broader perspective:The democratic party has for many years been composed of people who view themselves as politically oppressed or minorities-the poor, African Americans, women, etc... Traditionally they have selected as their presidential candidate a white, Christian man who tries to represent the views of all of these groups and ends up not being able to represent all the constituent parts of their party.So now, they had to choose their presidential candidate from someone representing one of their constituent groups, either Obama, representing the African American vote, Clinton, representing the woman's vote, and Edwards, who campaigned under the banner of seeking to help the poor. So no matter who they choose, they're going to end up alienating the rest of their party. Eventually, the race came down to betwen Obama and Hillary, and different sides of the Democratic party began to violently oppose each other, even though their respective cantidates' policies were very very similar, and if you asked a random person how the politics of Clinton and Obama differ, they probably wouldn't be able to tell you, they'd just be able to say "I just know Hillary's a witch."So, at this point, Obama has edged out a lead and Clinton has finally dropped out of the race. Now, Obama has alienated half the Democratic party, some to the point where they may even make the jump to voting Republican. Which is bad, because in the polls, McCain already has an edge over Obama.Which means... at this point, Obama needs to do all he can to reunite the Democratic party and, really, what that means he needs to do is he needs to have Hillary as his running mate, because then he'll have the female vote as well as the black vote. I know that's kind a base and cynical way of looking at it, but it's really the truth.

[hitmanblood 0]

Well, I am not American and I have no right to vote in elections but I have followed some parts of campaign on the CNN and I personally think that Hillary might be good choice because she will buy him many votes either from women and from all other supporters that she herself had gained in this prolonged campaign or fight Nonetheless I think that he should choose someone more from teh ranks of people. As far as I understand he is man from the people and "for people" so he should choose someone from the middle class to start winning also those votes otherwise he might lose altogether. And one other thing are minorities powerful choice would be to choose someone from minorities as he is in fact strong there but getting stronger is never bad tactics. I am sure they will think about this several times over to be sure and check all the backgrounds. The other thing I am interested in is whether his life is in danger, as being black candidate for president he is getting even more chance of winning? We all know how powerful those organization can be. Some would stop at nothing to see him lose his race.