Excerpt:
The past few weeks have belonged to McCain, largely because he has been on the attack. Obama has been stuck in a reactive stance. The merits of McCain's attacks are irrelevant – if he is allowed to define the terms of the election, he will win. One subtle way that McCain is defining the election is through the chatter about Obama's VP selection. There is a large group of Dems that want Obama to select a VP that will somehow shore up his perceived deficiencies in foreign policy and governing. It doesn't seem to matter that the Democratic voting public rejected this argument in the primaries. The poster child for this line of reasoning is Joe Biden. To be fair, Sen. Biden is smart on foreign policy, speaks well, and would probably relish the role of attack dog. But he is as much Mr. Washington as John McCain is. Selecting Biden would significantly affect the “change” message. Instead, Obama should select someone who helps reinforce his brand. That would imply Governors Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius or Gen. Wesley Clark. We ran a Veepstakes contest here at Eyes On Obama, which was comfortably won by Gov. Sebelius with over 77,000 votes cast. It is clearly the estimation of the Eyes On Obama community that Sebelius is the best choice, and it is curious to us that she gets so little mention from the chattering class. The other data point that can be gleaned from the vote is that change beats out experience. Every single one of our top 5 contenders was a change candidate. There's plenty of historical support for choosing a running mate that reinforces brand as opposed to someone with complementary traits. Dick Cheney was even further to the right than George W. Bush. Al Gore was a young southerner selected for the VP spot in another “change” year. That worked out pretty well for Bill Clinton. Complementary picks like Lieberman, Edwards, and Quayle muddied the message and ended up pleasing no one.
One subtle way that McCain is defining the election is through the chatter about Obama's VP selection. There is a large group of Dems that want Obama to select a VP that will somehow shore up his perceived deficiencies in foreign policy and governing. It doesn't seem to matter that the Democratic voting public rejected this argument in the primaries. The poster child for this line of reasoning is Joe Biden. To be fair, Sen. Biden is smart on foreign policy, speaks well, and would probably relish the role of attack dog. But he is as much Mr. Washington as John McCain is. Selecting Biden would significantly affect the “change” message.
Instead, Obama should select someone who helps reinforce his brand. That would imply Governors Tim Kaine and Kathleen Sebelius or Gen. Wesley Clark. We ran a Veepstakes contest here at Eyes On Obama, which was comfortably won by Gov. Sebelius with over 77,000 votes cast. It is clearly the estimation of the Eyes On Obama community that Sebelius is the best choice, and it is curious to us that she gets so little mention from the chattering class. The other data point that can be gleaned from the vote is that change beats out experience. Every single one of our top 5 contenders was a change candidate.
There's plenty of historical support for choosing a running mate that reinforces brand as opposed to someone with complementary traits. Dick Cheney was even further to the right than George W. Bush. Al Gore was a young southerner selected for the VP spot in another “change” year. That worked out pretty well for Bill Clinton. Complementary picks like Lieberman, Edwards, and Quayle muddied the message and ended up pleasing no one.
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