VP Watch

1) The Shock Value: How often does the wife of a vice president -- much less the wife of a future president and the mother of another future president -- get quoted as an attack (rhymes with log)? Maybe Abigail Adams knows. Bush insisted she meant to call Ferraro a "witch," but that's not how most folks read it.

2) Groundbreaking Politics: It can be tricky business for a male candidate to attack a female opponent. Rick Lazio's 2000 Senate campaign never recovered after he physically approached Hillary Clinton in a manner depicted by her campaign as "menacing."

This campaign has taught us there are two emerging choices for how to effectively unleash a political attack against a woman: Go after her husband or have a woman deliver the verbal punch. Barack Obama and his supporters fired shots at Bill Clinton as part of their effort to defeat the former first lady. When the McCain campaign wanted to take on Michelle Obama following her now-famous "proud of my country" comment, it deployed Cindy McCain to do the talking.

Ferraro was the first -- and remains the only -- woman to run on a major party's national ticket. Barbara Bush's comments represented a groundbreaking political strategy for dealing with a groundbreaking candidate. CQ VP Watch Senate Race Tip: Watch out Billy Shaheen.

3) My Father Reported It -- Barbara Bush made her comments to two reporters: Terry Hunt of AP and my father, Ira Allen, then of UPI.

In the coming days or weeks -- however long this blog runs -- I hope to draw on more of the stories in Kelter's book, which is illustrated by Wayne Shellabarger and published by Top Shelf Productions. The book is expected to be ready for shipping in late September or early October.

In the meantime, Kelter and Shellabarger are operating a veep-based Web site for ticketmate junkies.