Beyond the Dome

So Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, one of Barack Obama’s former rivals for the Democratic nomination, is being vetted as a potential running mate. Here’s a tip for the vetters: You might want to check how Dodd voted on that electronic surveillance bill this week.

Because Obama voted for it, and Dodd was, well, leading the charge against it.

Dodd and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin held up the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) bill so the Senate couldn’t vote on it before the July Fourth recess, and he sponsored the amendment to strip out the immunity for the telecommunications companies.

“If we do not change course and stand for our Constitution at this hour, for what is best for our country, for what we know is just and right, then history, I am confident, will most certainly decide that it was those of us in this body who bear equal responsibility for the president’s decisions — for it was we who looked the other way, time and time again,” Dodd said in a floor speech.

It’s the kind of speech that tends to get quoted back at you if you’re the running mate of a senator who voted the other way.

By voting for the FISA bill, Obama may have considerably narrowed the field of senators whom he could comfortably pick as a running mate. After all, it’s not a minor issue. When the bill’s opponents quote the Constitution, and the nominee’s base is furious at him for supporting it, you can pretty much guarantee that people will ask how the presidential and vice presidential candidates would settle their differences.

It’s not just Dodd, who isn’t at the top of most VP speculation lists anyway. It’s also Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden, Jr. of Delaware, who is mentioned more seriously and also voted against the FISA bill. There’s also Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a West Point graduate and former Army paratrooper who is sometimes mentioned as a running mate who could boost Obama’s national security credentials. He opposed the bill, too.

And for anyone who’s still hoping Obama will team up with Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, her “no” vote probably will make that even more difficult than it was before. (She did say, in a statement, that “I respect my colleagues who reached a different conclusion on today’s vote.”)

That leaves Obama with Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Ken Salazar of Colorado, all VP prospects who supported the FISA bill. And if Jim Webb of Virginia ever reconsiders his decision to take himself out of the race, Obama could pick him, since he voted for the FISA bill, too.

Obama might not want a senator, of course, and a governor wouldn’t present these problems, since none of them got to vote on the bill. But it’s a safe bet that even the governors would be asked how they stand on the issue. And if they disagreed with Obama, they would be wise to talk about it in as non-threatening a way as possible.