The American presidential election (32)
Last night, I watched Barack Obama being interviewed on CNN’s “The Situation Room”. He was thoughtful and articulate and, if I was an American, he would certainly have my vote.
Now Obama is going to be the Democratic Presidential candidate – it’s just going to take a little more time for Hillary Clinton to accept that and withdraw. So he must now be thinking of his Vice Presidential running mate.
Conventional wisdom states that the Presidential candidate should chose a running mate that complements him. So maybe Obama should be looking for someone who is a woman, white, able to connect with blue collar workers, from a state that is not in the north-west, and whom he respects and admires.
Clinton scores on the first three but fails hopelessly on the last two. So there will be no so-called ‘dream ticket’. In the CNN interview, Obama said that she “would be on anybody’s shortlist” – but I don’t see any chance of him choosing her.
Another option – one favoured by my good American friend Eric Lee – is John Edwards [see his case here]. Edwards scores on everything except gender and his selection would work for me – but I can see two problems.
First, Edwards withdrew from the Presidential race suddenly and surprisingly. The assumption is that he wanted to be with his wife who has cancer. If that’s the case, would he want to run as Obama’s number two?
Second, the Republicans are trying to paint Obama as too liberal to win the general election. But Edwards is more liberal than Obama on many economic issues. This seems bizarre to us in Britain but it could rule out an Obama-Edwards ticket in the USA. I don’t think it will happen.