Just to be provocative, I'll throw out Joe Biden's name. His hidden asset is his connection with white, working class voters. His obvious asset is his foreign policy experience.
For what it's worth, Condoleezza Rice does not make the list of Ambinder's prospective picks for McCain (Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty leads that list).
The Biden suggestion is being met with mixed reactions from liberal bloggers. Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum offers a well-thought rationale for why the Biden choice would work.
Once he leaves the cozy confines of a primary where the anti-war base is enough to win, Obama is going to enter the chillier territory of a general election where he'll need to draw a bunch of votes from the ranks of people who once supported the war. He needs a good way to signal these folks that he doesn't consider them tainted forever by their erstwhile support, and what better way than by choosing a moderately hawkish senator who once favored the war but has since changed his mind?
Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias, who incidentally supported the war during its popular beginnings, must never want to be president himself. He says Obama must pick someone who was against the war from the beginning:
But putting someone who voted for the war, even someone who did so half-heartedly and after making a quasi-promising effort to restrain Bush, seems to muddy way too much of the argument Obama is making.
My take: Obama has several good options. Jim Webb offers a great counter-narrative, Hillary Clinton could help unite Democrats (although I think that concern is overrated) and Kansas' Kathleen Sebelius is popular. But Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano could be too enticing too pass up. Imagine the negative coverage if John McCain is forced to battle for his home state in an election season where he will already have a tough enough time getting used to being the media's second favorite candidate.
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