The Triumph of Hope Over Experience

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That is said to be writer Samuel Johnson's assessment of a man who married for a second time after the death of his first wife ... to whom he had been unhappily married for many years.

I have come to the conclusion that it has many potential applications to Barack Obama and his campaign for a second term — but I'm having some difficulty narrowing it down to the best one.

You see, I have long felt that it is an accurate appraisal of any voter's decision to vote for Obama.

Based on his record in office, it's hard for me to see how anyone who did not vote for Obama in 2008 would be inclined to vote for him now.

2008 was when his appeal was at its zenith, when his soaring rhetoric reminded many people of American presidents from the past who are still admired today.

And, perhaps more than any other presidential election in my memory, 2008 was a choice between a candidate in whom voters saw themselves as they wished to be — and a candidate in whom voters saw themselves as they really are.

The voters selected the idealized version — and many have been disappointed. Clearly. Only 45% of Americans approved of the job he is doing in a recent poll on the subject. That's quite a tumble from the 70s and upper 60s of the early days of his presidency.

But 2012 is a different election. Ultimately, Obama will be judged on whether he has delivered on his promises — as is every incumbent president.

Thirty–two years ago, Ronald Reagan summed it up for fence straddlers who were trying to decide whether to give President Jimmy Carter a second term: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Reagan asked, and a majority of voters decided the answer was no.

Reagan the challenger was elected.

This is the eighth election since Reagan asked that question in his debate with Carter (ninth if you count the election in which Reagan defeated Carter). It is the fifth election in which that question has been relevant to one of the candidates (again, if you include 1980, it is the sixth such election).

When the answer has been yes, as it was in 1984 when Reagan sought a second term and in 1996 when Bill Clinton sought a second term, the incumbent has won a resounding victory.

When the answer has been no, though, incumbents generally lose (i.e., Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992) — although they have been known to pull out narrow victories once in awhile (i.e., George W. Bush in 2004).

I have no doubt that many of those who voted for Obama four years ago expected more from him than has been delivered.

Some probably feel obliged to support him now because they share the same party affiliation. For others, he pushes the right buttons when he speaks, whether his actions in office have matched his rhetoric or not.

Still others, I have concluded, feel compelled to support Obama — even if they are not satisfied with his performance in office — because they have decided that it would look bad to the rest of the world if the first black president is rejected by the voters.

Those people, I have noticed, are the first (but hardly the last) to point fingers at Obama's critics and label them racist — whether the label is deserved or not.

Now, I know that there are some people who will vote against Obama because of his race (which, as Morgan Freeman rightly pointed out recently, is not black but, rather, biracial). But far more of those who dissent from Obama do so from deeply held personal convictions.

I learned a long time ago that voters evaluate political candidates on the basis of what matters to them. Politicians (and their most devout supporters) do not get to choose what voters use to make their evaluations.

For some voters, what matters is a candidate's race (or gender or religion or sexual preference). I pity them because they are blind to the experiences and talents that many people bring to the table.

But we have been conditioned to assume that racism only works one way.

Lately, I have been wondering something: If we acknowledge that a certain portion of the vote that will be recorded against Obama in November will be due to his race, shouldn't we also acknowledge that a certain portion of the vote for him will be because of his race?

I know there are people out there who support Obama solely because he is black. I know some of them personally, and I know others from their arguments.

Arguments like ...

"Well, I know he isn't perfect, and I disagreed with him when he did W and X, and I didn't approve when he said Y and Z. And I don't feel comfortable with his positions on A, B and C.

"And he could have done more than he's done, but I'm going to vote for him, anyway."

These are the enablers.

And then there are excusers:

"None of this is his fault. He inherited a terrible mess that was years in the making, and it's going to take years to clean it up."

Perhaps, but recent polls I've seen say that about three–quarters of the voters believe the economy and jobs are the most important issues facing this nation.

That really isn't new. A majority of Americans believed that the economy and jobs were the most important issues facing us in 2008.

Or they will say, "We're screwed either way," and then they will tell you that they will vote to keep the guy who is in office.

I've asked some people if they would be inclined to re–elect a white president under these circumstances. They all said no, but they all said they would vote for Obama.

Four years ago, I told anyone who would listen (and even some who didn't want to) that whoever was elected, Obama or John McCain, his urgent mission would be to put America back to work.

If he did not, I warned, he would pay a severe price when he sought re–election.

Well, here we are, four years later. Obama has done little, if anything, to promote job creation. His policies have, in fact, restricted job creation.

And he continues to blame his predecessor — who certainly deserves his share of the blame for what he did in office but not for decisions that have been made since he left the White House.

This is pass–the–buck politics. It used to stop at the president's desk but no more.

This is a fairly recent phenomenon.

Ronald Reagan didn't continue to flog Carter after he had been in office for 3½ years. Nor did Clinton continue to flog the first George Bush when he had been in office for 3½ years.

But Obama feels entitled to play by different rules, and some of his supporters — in what must be the ultimate example of the triumph of hope over experience — are willing to permit him to do so in spite of mounting evidence that points to the folly of such an approach.

I guess those people never watched a carnival shell game — because that's how it works. The guy who is playing the game keeps talking and keeps distracting, and the mark loses track of where he thinks the pea is.

We are about to embark on a week of shrill, unfounded name calling and mudslinging at the Democrats' convention in Charlotte, N.C., on behalf of a man who hasn't been able to bring unemployment below 8% in the entirety of his term.

That must be evidence of reverse racism.

Certainly, it is proof that Samuel Johnson was right.

Random Thoughts About Paul Ryan

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The first thought I had this morning when I saw Paul Ryan being introduced as Mitt Romney's running mate was of Dan Quayle, vice president under George H.W. Bush.

Nearly 24 years ago to the day, Bush presented Quayle as his presumptive running mate at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans. Bush, of course, had been Ronald Reagan's vice president for eight years and was running more or less as the Gipper's substitute.

And, consequently, he benefited from Reagan's popularity.

But his choice of a running mate was widely criticized. Quayle, who was only about a year younger than Ryan is today, was bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm, yelping and squealing like a kid on a sugar high. Even some Republicans found it difficult to swallow.

In fact, none other than Ed Rollins, who managed Reagan's re–election campaign in 1984, lamented that the convention "was supposed to be [Bush's] showcase week," but that "got stomped on" by the selection of Quayle.

Initially, Ryan reminded me of Quayle, doing a little whooping and cheerleading as he walked to and then stood before a microphone. But, as he got into his remarks, it was clear that Ryan is no Dan Quayle. In comparison to Quayle, Ryan could be judged a success if he simply gets through his acceptance speech with a little maturity — and he showed more than a little of that in his introduction this morning.

In fact, Joe Biden is likely to realize rather quickly — probably well in advance of the vice presidential debate in a couple of months — that Ryan is no Sarah Palin, either. Palin's lack of knowledge on key issues was widely ridiculed, but nothing remotely like that could be said of Paul Ryan.

Ryan, wrote Michael Barone and Chuck McCutcheon in the 2012 Almanac of American Politics, "is regarded as an intellectual leader in the GOP for his unrivaled influence on fiscal matters."

Speaking of debates, Quayle made the observation in his debate with Lloyd Bentsen that his congressional career was as lengthy as John F. Kennedy's when he was elected president — which was almost, but not quite, correct and gave Bentsen the opening for his famous line that Quayle was "no Jack Kennedy."

(Ryan's congressional service actually does match Kennedy's in length.)

The Bush–Quayle ticket went on to win that 1988 election in spite of Quayle, but it was a different time, and no one yet knows the kind of impact Ryan may or may not have on the race. True, the Democrats led in the polls when both running mates were announced, but Bush overcame that during the general election campaign.

Romney doesn't face the kind of mountain to climb that Bush did, but he doesn't have the benefit of being a member of a successful lame–duck president's team, either.

Romney's task is just the opposite — to make the case that the Obama administration has been a failure — and Ryan seemed well qualified to make that argument.

No, Paul Ryan is no Dan Quayle. And he is no Sarah Palin.

Accept it.

The Short, Unhappy Candidacy of Tom Eagleton

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We've reached the point in the presidential campaign when challengers select their running mates and incumbents (presumably) decide whether to keep theirs.

As I have said before, I don't expect Barack Obama to drop Joe Biden from his ticket — even though, as always, there are those in the president's party who advocate that — so there is probably little for Democrats to gain from this.

But Mitt Romney would be well advised to pay attention.

Forty years ago, only two weeks had passed since the McGovern–Eagleton ticket had been nominated by the Democrats to challenge the Nixon–Agnew ticket in the fall.

Things had gotten a little out of hand at the convention, and the presidential nominee wasn't able to give his acceptance speech until well after most people on the American mainland had gone to bed.

Most people, even the most optimistic of the Democrats, probably did not think that McGovern had much of a chance of defeating Richard Nixon. Nixon's approval ratings that summer ranged from the upper 50s to the low 60s.

When a president enjoys that kind of popularity about four months before the election, it usually suggests that a landslide is on the horizon — and Nixon's approval numbers in the summer of 1972 exceeded Reagan's in the summer of 1984 and were roughly the same as Clinton's in 1996.

(Both Reagan and Clinton were re–elected.)

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Nevertheless, while Democrats might have been resigned to the idea that they were going to lose, they had reason to believe, as they left their convention in Miami, that they could win eight or 10 states — not just the state of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, which is all the Democrats won that fall.

There was reason, in other words, for Democrats to believe that the nation would not tune them out before Labor Day, that their presidential ticket could at least keep up the pretense of being competitive long enough for their congressional candidates to get a foothold.

But that was before the train wreck of the Eagleton candidacy.

I guess the potential for the train wreck was there all along. The day after he clinched the presidential nomination, McGovern approached just about every big–name Democrat about the second spot on his ticket, and all turned him down. Time was running short so McGovern took the advice of Sen. Gaylord Nelson and offered it to Missouri Sen. Tom Eagleton.

Nelson wasn't the first to suggest Eagleton, only the latest. As McGovern observed in an op–ed piece he wrote for the New York Times four years ago, Eagleton clearly wanted the spot. He had been lobbying for it, but McGovern was hesitant to offer it because "I didn't know Eagleton very well."

His first choice had been Sen. Edward Kennedy, but Kennedy turned him down and recommended Eagleton. McGovern's next choice was Sargent Shriver, who also turned him down and also recommended Eagleton. Similar stories unfolded with almost every person who was offered the spot on the ticket.

For awhile, the possibility of offering the spot to TV news anchor Walter Cronkite was discussed. Cronkite, as McGovern observed, had been named the most admired man in America, and the idea of having him on the ticket was "intriguing."

Eventually, McGovern and his staff dismissed the idea as "too unrealistic."

"I later learned from Walter that he would have accepted," McGovern wrote. "I wish we had chosen him."

Of that, there can be no doubt.

Despite whatever misgivings he may have had, McGovern offered the spot to Eagleton, who had assured the nominee's political director that "there was nothing in [Eagleton's] background that would be considered troublesome." He offered the spot to Eagleton 15 minutes before his deadline for announcing his choice.

But haste makes waste, the old saying says, and Eagleton had concealed a few things.

• It turned out that Eagleton had been treated for exhaustion and depression — including electroshock therapy.
• He had been taking strong anti–psychotic drugs.
• When McGovern saw a copy of Eagleton's medical records, he noted words like depression and suicidal tendencies.

Times have changed. In 2012, Americans are more tolerant of many things than they were in 1972.

And the revelation of a history of depression might not carry the same stigma today that it did then.

But the reaction that Eagleton encountered was hostile, fearful. In hindsight, it was inevitable that McGovern would have to drop his running mate.

But it wasn't that simple. There were complications.

He was hesitant, McGovern said later, to remove Eagleton from the ticket immediately because his daughter had suffered from depression, and he was concerned about how she would react.

That has a noble sound to it, but it was hard to reconcile with public actions — not unlike when Nixon's former attorney general and Watergate co–conspirator, John Mitchell, announced he was stepping down as director of Nixon's re–election campaign to spend more time with his wife.

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[Bob] Woodward asked several members of the [Washington] Post's staff ... if they believed the resignation was unconnected to Watergate. They did.

The next day, metropolitan editor Harry Rosenfeld frowned and told Woodward, "A man like John Mitchell doesn't give up all that power for his wife."

Bob Woodard and Carl Bernstein

All the President's Men (1974)

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Similarly, I suppose, a man doesn't give up a major party's vice presidential nomination unless the rattling from the skeletons in his closet becomes too noisy.

In late July 1972, McGovern infamously announced that he was supporting his running mate "1000 percent," but, by the end of the month, Eagleton was off the ticket, and Shriver agreed to replace him.

In military parlance, McGovern had surrendered the high ground to Nixon — and virtually without a fight.

Choosing a Running Mate

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With the primaries over and the battle for the Republican presidential nomination apparently decided, political writers find themselves in an historically dreary period until the parties gather for their conventions.

It is at this time when there is much speculation about the ultimate identity of at least one of the major parties' running mates.

Of course, in 2012, we already know the name of one of the running mates. That would be Joe Biden, the incumbent vice president.

Four years ago, it was a much less common situation — in which no incumbent was running — so there was a great deal of speculation regarding the identities of both party nominees' running mates.

But this year, as I say, we already know who will be the running mate on the Democrats' ticket — unless, as a few folks have predicted, Barack Obama decides to drop Biden and put Hillary Clinton on his ticket.

I have argued repeatedly that this is highly unlikely. In their zeal to whip up a discussion about a non–issue, such observers show an appreciation only for drama, not history.

Realistically, only Republican Mitt Romney will be selecting a running mate in this election cycle.

Recent speculation about Romney's eventual running mate has focused, as usual, on the most well–known names — but history tells us that presidential nominees, in what is often described as their first presidential–level decision, are likely to surprise just about everyone — perhaps spectacularly so.

I believe the reason for that is, while it is always possible that a vice president could become president at any time, presidential nominees don't tend to treat the decision with the kind of reverence it deserves.

Don't get me wrong; it's an important decision, but the overriding consideration is usually political — which potential running mate can give the ticket the most bang for the buck on Election Day?

Thus, the decision offers a fascinating glimpse into the logic of the nominee, but, as a barometer for the kind of decisions he might be likely to make in office, it is virtually worthless.

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Like four years ago.

There was a lot of speculation about the running mates Obama and John McCain would choose, but, in the end, the selections of Biden and Sarah Palin were complete surprises — and seemingly motivated by entirely different considerations (even though both choices came down to politics — as usual — no matter how the campaigns chose to spin the decisions).

They addressed weaknesses — either real or perceived — of the presidential nominees.

Domestically, in 2008, there had been concerns about gas and food prices, but there were also international tensions that summer, and foreign policy was an area in which McCain, a Vietnam–era prisoner of war, was believed to have an advantage.

As a presidential candidate, Biden hadn't attracted much support, and he came from a tiny state that was already believed to be in the bag for the Democrats, but he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and, as such, he brought foreign policy credibility to the Democratic ticket.

So, while conventional wisdom holds that a running mate is chosen in large part because of the votes he can bring or the states he can help the nominee carry, that didn't appear to play much of a role in Obama's decision. The selection of Biden was praised because it was believed to have addressed an administrative need, not an electoral one.

But it was political in the sense that it was designed to reassure voters who saw the war on terrorism and border security as the most crucial issues in 2008 (remember, when the Democrats convened in Denver, the economic collapse had not yet happened.)

McCain's apparent motivation in selecting a female running mate, on the other hand, was to appeal to the millions of women who had supported Hillary Clinton's campaign and were said to be lukewarm on Obama.

It was an electorally motivated decision, and it was seen for the transparent maneuver that it was. The Republicans entirely overlooked the fact that women who participated in the Democratic primaries had an ideological agenda, too. Palin was simply too extreme for most of them.

In fact, after the votes had been counted, I heard several people second–guessing McCain's choice. They argued — correctly — that there were centrist Republican women who could have had broader appeal to female voters.

(Most of those people, it is worth noting, had nothing but praise for Palin when she was chosen and during the campaign.)

But, on the other hand, Palin had to be extreme to keep the conservatives in line. There was already a widespread perception of McCain as a "RINO" (a "Republican in Name Only"), and he needed to give the conservatives a reason to show up at the polls.

Also — although it was hardly mentioned — Palin was the only candidate who, as a governor, brought executive experience to the table.

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Traditionally, there are many factors involved in choosing a running mate, most aimed at providing some kind of balance to the ticket. Everyone has shortcomings, and the philosophy behind running mate selection has emphasized minimizing them.

As I said, Palin's executive experience carried some weight with voters who saw nothing but legislative experience from Obama, McCain and Biden.

In 2004, John Kerry apparently felt party unity was the most important factor so he chose North Carolina Sen. John Edwards to be his running mate.

Edwards had been Kerry's chief rival and the second–leading vote getter in the Democratic primaries — even though he won only two. It must have been a disappointment indeed for the Kerry team when their candidate received virtually no post–convention bounce in the polls. I'm sure they expected something, if only from the disgruntled Democrats whom they sought to appease.

Party unity never seemed to be a factor when George W. Bush made his choice in 2000. In fact, he appointed Dick Cheney to lead his vice–presidential search committee, but then Bush took the remarkable step of asking Cheney himself to be his running mate.

Had party unity been at the top of Bush's concerns, he probably would have picked McCain, his main rival for the nomination, to be his running mate.

Party unity apparently was behind Ronald Reagan's selection of George H.W. Bush in 1980.

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Things got a little out of hand at that year's Republican convention. A rumor that former President Gerald Ford would be Reagan's running mate swept through the delegations like wildfire.

The idea was that Ford and Reagan, who had waged a bitter campaign for the GOP nomination four years earlier, would be co–presidents.

But negotiations broke down, and the dream ticket never came to fruition. In the end, Reagan picked Bush, who had been his chief rival for the nomination that year.

One of the longest–standing considerations in choosing a running mate has been geographical. The idea was to attract votes in states and/or regions that the presidential nominee might not otherwise get. I'm inclined to think that was more important in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but, with the rapid emergence of technology in the last 50 or 60 years, geographical factors have become less important.

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Certainly Bill Clinton, in 1992, did not feel it was necessary to select someone who would provide geographical balance.

He chose Al Gore, a senator from Tennessee, one of the states that borders on Clinton's home state of Arkansas. Perhaps Clinton wanted to double down on his Southern credentials; most Southern states, after all, had only voted for Democrats once, perhaps twice, in the previous 30 years.

Also, with two Southerners on the ticket, the Bush campaign could not portray either candidate as a Northern liberal like previous Democratic candidates (i.e., George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis), and Gore's military service negated criticism Clinton had received on that during the primaries.

In his memoir "My Life," Clinton said of Gore, "I liked him and was convinced that he ... would be a big addition to our campaign."

Sometimes personal chemistry trumps everything else.

Presidential nominees choose their running mates for reasons that probably wouldn't occur to most people.

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In 1968, Richard Nixon reportedly was so impressed with Spiro Agnew's speech placing his name in nomination that he offered him the second spot on the ticket.

Agnew was virtually unknown outside his home state of Maryland, but Nixon believed Maryland could be his beachhead in the South.

Nixon didn't carry Maryland in 1968, but he did carry five Southern states as he introduced the Southern strategy to modern American politics.

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And, in 1964, Barry Goldwater picked New York Rep. Bill Miller to be his running mate because Miller was known to be the congressman who annoyed Goldwater's opponent, President Lyndon Johnson, the most.

There will be a lot of talk in the next two months about who will run with Romney in the fall, and the names you're likely to hear the most are the rising stars in Republican circles — Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie and others.

But don't be surprised if, when the smoke clears, someone you never heard of is standing on that podium with Romney in late August.

Joe Biden Is Not the Problem

I first heard the rumblings nearly two years ago.

In August of 2010, I wrote about former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder's suggestion that Barack Obama should replace Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton in 2012, but my tendency then was to dismiss it as idle talk by people who really didn't know what they were talking about.

The topic reappeared last fall, and, when I heard it said that good ol' Joe Biden had to go, that he was a drag on Obama, I responded by writing that "too much emphasis is placed on the vice presidential nomination."

I wrote that "I don't think replacing Biden with anyone, Hillary or anyone else, is the answer for what ails Obama."

And I still believe that, even though I read articles at least once a week now suggesting that Obama needs to drop Biden.

It seems to me that, whenever incumbent presidents have been preparing to run for a second term, this kind of talk always seems to surface.

Sometimes it makes sense. In 1992, for example, there was a lot of talk about how George H.W. Bush needed to replace Dan Quayle on his ticket. Quayle had gained a reputation, whether fairly or unfairly, for always saying something stupid, and some people felt he was a drag on the ticket.

Now, in 1992, I was never going to vote for Bush, anyway, but I could sympathize with the sentiment. Quayle was ridiculed so much in those days that it really didn't take much persuading to convince anyone that Bush was bound to do better with someone else on his ticket.

Bush wound up keeping Quayle on the ticket, though, and, in hindsight, it is hard to imagine anyone who could have helped Bush win more than 100 electoral votes from Clinton. I think the challenger was going to win that election.

Some years are like that. I have to say that 1980 was like that. President Jimmy Carter was on shaky ground in all aspects of his presidency, and the talk that surfaced during his battle with Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination about dropping Vice President Walter Mondale probably had a lot to do with strategy and little, if anything, to do with Mondale's actual performance in office.

Mondale remained on the ticket, and I can't see how any other Democrat could have helped Carter avoid his landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan.

Usually such talk is frivolous. I don't know where it comes from. Perhaps it is a trial balloon to see if there is any way the incumbent can ratchet up his vote total with a fresh face.

If that is what it is, the conclusion usually is that changing the running mate won't make that much difference. Voters judge incumbent presidents on their records, and the voters' sense of fairness (to which Obama ceaselessly, relentlessly, seeks to appeal) tells them that, unless a vice president is guilty of some egregious offense — that if he has been doing his job (which, constitutionally, only requires him to preside over the Senate and break ties when they occur) — he does not deserve to be dropped.

So Reagan kept George H.W. Bush in 1984. Clinton kept Al Gore in 1996. George W. Bush kept Dick Cheney in 2004. Each was, at some point in those re–election campaigns, the focus of a drop ______ movement.

If Obama does drop Biden, my sense is that the voters, many of whom have become super sensitive to workplace fairness in recent years, would demand to know the reason — and, of course, there are few things that the administration could plausibly blow out of proportion to justify such a move.

The truth is that there is precious little that Obama can point to that will validate his claim that he needs and deserves a second term.

He can't run on his economic record. Unemployment was 6.5% nationally when Obama was elected in November 2008. It has been well above that level throughout his presidency.

His signature achievement, Obamacare, is likely to be overturned by the Supreme Court in the next few weeks.

Instead of bringing people together, Obama has polarized this nation to a greater extent than it was before he was elected.

None of those things can be blamed on Biden. Democrats knew when he was chosen to be Obama's running mate in 2008 that he was gaffe prone — but, for the most part, he's been a good soldier, doing the heavy lifting when he was asked to do it and generally keeping his tongue in check.

Gallup reports that Americans are divided on Biden. The latest survey is, as Jeffrey Jones observes, "the first time opinions of Biden have tilted negative since he became Obama's vice presidential pick," but the numbers are "not materially different" from the public's assessment of him from 2009 to 2011.

And this survey was conducted after both Biden's comments about same–sex marriage on Meet the Press and Obama's comments in an interview a few days later in which he said he supported the legalization of such marriages.

In the week that has passed, Biden has been criticized for forcing the president's hand. But I think it was done deliberately. Obama knows that the polls have shown a general softening in public opposition to gay marriage, and I believe this was an excuse for Obama to give lip service to an issue that he believes will energize groups who helped him win last time.

And, with the last president's experience fresh in his mind, Obama is doing the same thing — he's using gay marriage to distract attention from the real issues.

I knew several women who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries. When John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, it was mostly a ploy to attract Hillary's supporters, many of whom were thought to be up for grabs in the early fall of 2008.

That ploy failed for several reasons. Polls were showing a pretty close race between Obama and McCain until the economic collapse in September 2008. That, combined with Bush fatigue, pretty much assured that Obama would win.

Ironically, though, Obama had chosen his running mate in large part to bolster his ticket's foreign policy credentials. Biden was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time he was chosen to run with Obama, and there had been some international tensions that summer.

But foreign policy is way down the list in 2012. And, even if it wasn't, Obama has been trumpeting his role in the killing of Osama bin Laden last year. He doesn't need Biden's help in that category anymore.

Of course, Hillary has been secretary of state under this president so her greatest selling point — other than her gender — is her expertise in foreign policy.

And foreign policy is not on most voters' minds this year.

All that Obama has left is class warfare, which is hardly the inclusive, hope and change banner under which he campaigned four years ago. It is the divide and conquer politics that people have been complaining about for years.

Changing running mates won't alter the fundamentals of this campaign. The voters will do what they always do when an incumbent is on the ballot — they will assess the incumbent's record and decide if they want four more years of it.

My Initial Reaction to Palin's Speech

I'm sure I'll have more to say later, but I want to go to bed soon, so I'll just say this about Sarah Palin's speech tonight.

I think she was articulate, charming, entertaining, at times informative — and I think she'll give Joe Biden a run for his money in their Oct. 2 debate.

When she talked about how the people in small-town America "do some of the hardest work in America" — and I grew up in small-town America so I feel I know what she's talking about — I could hear in my head Jimmy Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life," telling his nemesis that the "rabble" of whom he spoke so disparagingly "do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community."

It was a Frank Capra-esque moment.

And she took aim (figuratively speaking) at criticism of her experience, saying that "a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

I wrote earlier this week that, having given birth a few months ago to a child with Down syndrome, she could be an advocate for parents of special needs children. She took care of that right away.

But she didn't take the opportunity to address some of my questions.

With the recent revelations about her daughter's pregnancy, Palin has the opportunity to talk about her pro-life views and her belief that unmarried people, particularly unmarried young people, should practice abstinence. She did not discuss those beliefs in her speech.

She also did not speak about her religious views, including her belief that "intelligent design" should be taught in schools.

Right now, I would give the speech a grade of B–.

It was one of the better speeches I've heard given at a political convention in many years.

But it could have been better than it was.

Getting to Know Her

The American public already knew John McCain and Barack Obama pretty well. And Joe Biden's story has been in and out of the news over the years.

But nobody knew much about Sarah Palin until last Friday.

Seems like we're getting a lot of information in a short period of time.

Of course, both sides have been putting out their own spins that are often half-truths.

The Republican spin is that Palin was thoroughly vetted, although that doesn't necessarily appear to be the case.

The Democrats' spin on Joe Biden, to play into Obama's message of "change," is that he's just "Joltin' Joe" from Pennsylvania — even though he's been representing Delaware in the Senate for nearly four decades.

Well, it's been 24 years since Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman to run on a major party's national ticket.

Back in those days, I thought we had dealt with all the issues that went along with nominating a woman for national office. But it seems I was wrong.

I guess the media got a little obsessed, in late summer of 1984, with its inquiries into the financial status of Ferraro's husband. Even though Ferraro had one daughter in her early 20s and another in her late teens when she ran for vice president, I don't recall any public discussions about what Ferraro would do or advise if one of her daughters became pregnant.

But that's the situation that Palin faces right now.

Actually, Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post thinks Bristol Palin's pregnancy is the "ultimate teachable moment."

Marcus observes that "[t]he unwed mother — or at least, the not-yet-wed mother — has become a more common (this is bad) and less shameful (this is good) phenomenon in 21st-century America."

Bristol Palin, apparently, has decided against having an abortion, and she plans on marrying the father of her baby.

That is the outcome that pro-lifers should want when a young woman has an unplanned pregnancy. And Sarah Palin has shown, by giving birth to a child she knew to have Down syndrome, that she is against abortion in her personal life.

She has, in fact, been outspoken in her opposition to abortion. And, it appears, her beliefs about abortion have been passed along to her daughter.

Sarah Palin now has the opportunity to be a national advocate for those who are pro-life. She can encourage women who are carrying babies with a chromosomal disorder, like Down syndrome.

And she can speak from experience about advising an unmarried daughter who becomes pregnant. That's an experience with which many American parents can relate.

The development with her daughter essentially does not change my initial impression of Gov. Palin.

When she was announced as McCain's presumptive running mate, the thing that struck me as remarkable about Palin was how unremarkable she is. (Well, except for the fact that she's a strikingly beautiful woman.)

She never seemed particularly quirky to me. I used to watch the "Northern Exposure" TV series, and she seemed pretty normal, especially when compared to the mostly eccentric residents of the fictional Alaska town of Cicely.

Then I found out that Palin's hometown of Wasilla is quite similar to Cicely. (That may or may not be a good thing, depending upon your opinion of the folks from that make-believe community.)

But many of the things about her would fit in nicely in the real places where I've lived. And with the real people I have known.

When I was a small child, for example, my hometown in Arkansas was about the size of Palin's hometown.

When I was growing up, many of the adults in my life owned guns (as Palin does). Few, if any, of them ever went hunting for moose, but they all took part in the start of deer season.

Palin's favorite dish, I've been told, is moose stew. Many of the people I knew when I was growing up were partial to venison steaks.

Recent inquiries have also uncovered the revelation that Palin's husband was charged with DUI when he was in his early 20s. That apparently is information that Palin voluntarily shared with McCain's vetting team. There is no indication of any ongoing alcohol problem, which probably means Todd Palin was a lot like many of the guys I grew up with. He drank some when he was young, had a brush with the law because of it and learned his lesson.

Abortion was rarely spoken of in my circle of friends, but I knew girls in high school who, like Bristol Palin, had to make a very personal decision. And I'm sure their decisions were influenced, at least to a degree, by any advice they received from their mothers.

Sarah Palin has taken the position that young people need to abstain from sexual activity. As I pointed out earlier, Bristol Palin seems to have embraced much of her mother's personal philosophy. But she doesn't appear to have embraced the part about not embracing.

I was a teenager once, and I agree with Marcus: "[T]alking about abstinence turns out to be easier than abstaining."

Now is Palin's opportunity to explain to the public why she believes abstinence is the best approach. But, given the recent developments, she should be aware that it isn't always a successful strategy.

That really shouldn't surprise anyone. Whether you're a parent or not, you know that parental advice was not always taken when you were a teenager. Has human nature changed since you were Bristol Palin's age?

The fact that Birstol didn't follow her mother's advice does not mean the advice itself wasn't sound — particularly in the modern age, when sexual activity can lead not only to pregnancy but also to an ever-expanding list of diseases — or that the messenger was ineffective.

But there are people who believe that it is naïve to tell young people to abstain. They want to know why Palin believes that is a strategy that can work.

"Being a teenager means taking stupid risks," writes Marcus. "The best, most attentive parenting and the best, most comprehensive sex education won't stop teenagers from doing dumb things. The most we as parents can hope for is to insulate our children, as best we can, from the consequences of their own stupidity."

Sometimes, it's hard to insulate adults, too. That's a question the Republican Party needs to resolve in this matter.

But it's not the only issue the Republicans need to resolve.

Elisabeth Bumiller suggests, in the New York Times, that the Republican vetting process — despite having about a three-month head start on Obama's team — settled on Palin too hastily.

Until only a few days before unveiling Palin as his running mate, Bumiller writes, McCain "was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend," like Sen. Joe Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, or former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

But their pro-choice views precluded their selection. The probability of a revolt within the party was simply too great.

"With time running out," Bumiller writes, McCain "had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later."

This week is Palin's opportunity to demonstrate that McCain made a wise choice.

Either Way, It's Going to be a Landmark Election

---

"Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons. And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good."

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin,
Republican vice presidential candidate,
Aug. 29, 2008

---

John McCain's choice for running mate made it official. The election of 2008 will be remembered in the history books as a landmark, no matter who wins.

And right now, I think, it's anybody's guess who will win.

If the Democrats win, Barack Obama will become the nation's first black president. He's also the first black nominee on a major political party's ticket.

If the Republicans win, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will become the nation's first female vice president. She's the first female on a Republican ticket.

With McCain's selection of Palin, both tickets now are clearly outside the historic box.

I've been thinking about the implications of McCain's choice. I have a few thoughts to share.

• When I wrote about Palin as a potential running mate six months ago, I wrote about things like geographic balance and gubernatorial experience.
  
  Other things seem to have come up now that her nomination is no longer speculation but a virtual certainty.
• Here's a point I haven't heard anyone mention today (perhaps someone has mentioned it and I just haven't heard it):
  
  We have no Southerners on either ticket.
  
  If you count the first George Bush as a Texan (and some of the Texans I know don't because he was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Connecticut, although he spent most of his adult life as a Texas resident), the last election in which no bona fide Southerners were on either ticket was 1972.
  
  (Again, I suppose that requires an exception — some people consider Maryland a Southern state, because it condoned slavery and tobacco was its primary cash crop in the early days. If that makes Maryland a Southern state, then Richard Nixon's running mate in 1968 and 1972, Spiro Agnew of Maryland, was a Southerner.
  
  (However, I never have regarded Maryland as a Southern state because, while there certainly were tobacco planters in Maryland who were sympathetic to the Confederate cause, the state did not secede from the Union during the Civil War nor did it fight for the South.
  
  (And if a state didn't fight on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War, I have a hard time reconciling the inclusion of that state as a "Southern" state. Some people, however, use different criteria when making that judgment.
  
  (Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, if one considers Maryland a Southern state, then the streak between elections without a Southern nominee really has to go back to 1948 — although one tends to run into much the same issue concerning the home states of Harry Truman of Missouri and his running mate Alben Barkley of Kentucky.
  
  (And — to proceed even farther along this particular slippery slope — if Missouri is considered a Southern state, that means the streak goes back to 1940, where it definitely stops. No more exceptions to be made. There were absolutely no Southerners on either ticket in 1940.)
  
  Anyway, for most, if not all, of the last 60 years, Southern or border state candidates have figured prominently on national tickets. But not in 2008 (although, again, someone could raise an argument about Delaware — even though it had mostly ended the practice of slavery by the time of the Civil War and never seceded).
• In the past, my belief has been that historic "firsts" in American politics tend to be long on symbolism and somewhat short on a record of success.
  
  But, in 2008, it seems we can't miss.
  
  Both Obama and Palin are historic firsts. And, unless something wildly unpredictable happens between now and Nov. 4, one of them is bound to win.
  
  The other halves of both tickets — McCain and Joe Biden — are part of that "old white men's club" that represents the establishment. This year, though, one can be forgiven for seeing them both as transitional figures, serving as the bridges between their parties and the opportunities of the future.
  
  Voters can also be forgiven for wondering things about the selection of a female that they might not have wondered before.
  
  For example ...
  
  The Wall Street Journal is already talking about McCain's mission to "seize the momentum" from jubilant Democrats wrapping up their historic convention.
  
  How much political consideration was given to the notion of selecting a woman (only hours after the first black presidential nominee had given his acceptance speech in a football stadium filled with screaming, adoring supporters)?
  
  If Barack Obama did not head the Democratic ticket, would McCain choose Palin?
  
  Is she the Republican he feels is most qualified to take over the duties of the presidency in an emergency?
  
  I'll admit, it didn't hurt that Palin paid homage to the women who blazed the political trail ahead of her — Democrats Geraldine Ferraro, as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984, and Hillary Clinton, in her unsuccessful bid for the presidential nomination this year.
  
  I've heard many women in both parties praise Clinton's tenacity in her presidential campaign, and I know that many women came into 2008 believing they would have an opportunity in November that they could only dream of before — the chance to vote for a woman for president.
  
  Many blacks clearly felt the same way about Barack Obama. Obviously, both candidates could not be nominated for president. One had to lose — which means one candidate's demographic group had to be disappointed.
  
  Palin has the opportunity to fill the void left by Clinton's departure from the race.
  
  Women represent a huge share of the electorate. They don't vote as a bloc, but they do have similar (and related) needs and goals. In that sense, it appears that the Democrats' loss could well be the Republicans' gain.
  
  So, from the perspective of a nominee who wants to counter the groundbreaking nature of his opponent's presidential nomination, I think McCain probably did as well as he could.
  
  Earlier this year, I suggested that McCain might consider former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts. For all the reasons I mentioned, I still think Watts would be a strong national candidate in the future. But, in hindsight, I think it would have been unwise to put a black man on the GOP ticket and expect that to make the Republicans more competitive for the black vote in November.
  
  Blacks have been voting heavily for Democrats for generations. And, while Watts might have been able to put a small dent in the Democrats' share of the black vote, frankly, it would have been unrealistic to expect a massive shift of allegiances in support of a conservative black candidate for vice president over a liberal black candidate for president on the other side.
  
  But the gender gap is alive and well — especially given the lingering animosity between Clinton's supporters and Obama's supporters.
  
  And that fact did not escape ABC News, which observed that Palin said, "The women of America aren't finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."
  
  That could be an appealing pitch for many women who deeply wanted to see someone from their gender on a national ticket this year.
  
  While it remains to be seen how Palin is vewed after a weekend of intense scrutiny followed by the exposure a designated nominee receives at a convention, she got off to a good start in her coming-out party in Dayton, Ohio, today.
• For those who were looking for a candidate who can reassure cultural conservatives, Palin seems to fit the bill:
  1. Palin is a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association.
  2. Palin has a son who was born in April with Down syndrome. Many women choose abortion when they learn they are carrying a child with Down syndrome, but Palin demonstrated her pro-life commitment by choosing to carry the child to term. He was with her family at the rally today.
  3. Palin is a supporter of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) — her running mate is not.
Add to that a few other "pluses" McCain acquired with his choice — Palin is charismatic. She has an engaging speaking style. She is the mother of a soldier fighting in Iraq, which reinforces McCain's support for the Iraq War. Most people can see, in Palin, their daughter or sister or mother. Or spouse. She appears to be capable of connecting with people on a number of levels. I think there are clearly some drawbacks, but it remains to be seen how severe they are:
• Primarily, I think, the fact that Palin has been governor for less than two years undercuts McCain's argument that Obama, with less than four years in the Senate, isn't experienced enough.
  
  (Although, from a strategic perspective, perhaps McCain wants to nudge the Democrats into re-opening this discussion — since it would focus on the presidential, not vice presidential, nominees.)
• Palin is the only major party candidate who isn't known very well by the American public. As a result, her statements and movements will be under a considerable public microscope for awhile.
  
  (Although she should be all right if she can avoid the problems that plagued Ferraro in 1984 — general missteps and her husband's financial scandal.)
• It seems to me that most, if not all, of Hillary Clinton's supporters also support most of the same things Clinton does. Thus, I think it would be a mistake for McCain to think that disaffected Clinton supporters will automatically support Palin and the GOP.
If you voted for Clinton, you're probably pro-choice. You're probably a supporter of universal health care. In short, you probably support most of the Democrats' agenda. Palin supports what has become the traditional Republican agenda. The question each of Hillary Clinton's supporters have to ask themselves is, will gender trump ideology? If most of them decide that it does, then this choice could be a big plus for McCain.
• That really brings me to this "gender gap" matter.
  
  I don't know if the gender gap really exists. If it does, it seems to me that whatever "gap" exists owes its existence more to racial differences than sexual ones.
  
  I was looking at some exit poll figures that go back to 1972, and in every election from 1972 through 1996, women voted for the party that won the White House. They also tended to give a higher share of their vote to the Democrat than men did — although it's worth noting that President Reagan enjoyed a rare (for Republicans) double-digit victory among women in 1984, the year the Democrats put Ferraro on the ticket.
  
  Since 2000, women in general have favored the Democrats, even while the nation has been electing the Republicans.
  
  Now, the numbers among white women tell a somewhat different story.
  
  White women, who have tended to represent about 43% of the overall vote, have been more inclined to vote for Republicans than their black and Hispanic sisters, who have been responsible for adjusting the overall women's vote to reflect greater support for Democrats.
  
  Actually, since 1972, white women have voted for the Democratic nominee only once — in 1996, when they voted to re-elect Bill Clinton.
  
  Perhaps the Republicans are conceding the black vote to the Democrats — which, considering the historical pattern, would be a prudent thing to do, even if the Democrats hadn't nominated a black man for president.
  
  Perhaps Palin is intended to be a lure for the white women's vote that Republicans may be fearful of losing in 2008.
• It's also worth noting that McCain turned 72 today. If he's elected president in November, he will become the oldest man elected to that office.
  
  Given the demands and pressures of the presidency in the 21st century, as well as McCain's own cancer history, it's understandable to be concerned about how secure his future would be.
  
  Well, the future is always uncertain.
  
  Even when you think you're on solid ground, that ground may well turn to jelly in an instant if an earthquake strikes. And, as someone who grew up in the famed "tornado alley," I've seen homes and businesses that were reduced to rubble by angry winds that were calm only minutes before.
  
  But ...
  1. if the Republicans win, and
  2. if McCain does not survive his term in office, then
  
  I wonder if Palin will be reviewing the early episodes of "Commander in Chief," the Geena Davis TV show from 2005-2006?
  
  The show began to change in inexplicable ways midway through the season, but the early episodes were intriguing explorations into the issues facing a woman who unexpectedly ascends to the presidency when the incumbent dies.
  
  (By the way — an interesting trivia point. Davis' character in "Commander in Chief" was named Mackenzie, and many people called her "Mac." In reality, of course, the 2008 presidential candidate is John McCain — and some people have taken to calling him "Mac.")
• I don't consider myself old, but it's a little unsettling for me to realize that both national tickets have a candidate who is younger than I am. That's a "first" for me!
  
  For the record, I am 48. Obama is 47 and Palin is 44.

Oh, and by the way ...

Mark October 2 on your calendar. That's the day that Biden debates Palin.

It will be interesting to see if Biden, who has something of a shoot-from-the-hip style, can tone it down in the debate. (If memory serves me correctly, that was the same challenge being issued to Vice President Bush before his 1984 debate with Ferraro.)

The Plot Thickens ...

John McCain is only a few hours from naming his running mate.

And the choice remains a closely guarded secret.

The "favorites" who appeared to be emerging last night are not turning out to be such hot prospects in the light of the new day.

CNN's Dana Bash has been reporting this morning that the Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty camps are both saying that their men will not be traveling to Ohio to be with McCain today. And I've also heard reports — apparently from Ridge himself — that the former Pennsylvania governor doesn't plan to be in Ohio today, either.

If you read my earlier blog entries, both Romney and Pawlenty were being mentioned prominently last night — especially Pawlenty. Ridge seems to have cooled off quite a bit.

Bash is also saying that a "mysterious" airplane from Alaska — possibly carrying Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and two teenagers — arrived in Ohio in the last few hours.

Palin, of course, has been mentioned as a possible running mate — although her name hasn't been mentioned very often lately. Even so, if the running mate turns out to be Palin — or another woman, whether her name has been mentioned in connection with the running mate spot or not — such a choice may be intended to lure disaffected supporters (especially females) of Hillary Clinton.

However, reports from Alaska suggest that Palin is still in her home state.

If true, that would make it awkward — if not impossible — for her to travel to Ohio in time for the big rally McCain has planned for mid-day.

In Denver, which just played host to the Democratic National Convention, an Associated Press report in the Rocky Mountain News is saying that Palin is emerging as the favorite. "Two GOP strategists close to the McCain campaign said all indications pointed to Palin, 44, a self-styled 'hockey mom' and political reformer."

I guess we'll have to wait until McCain is ready to make his announcement.

Clues About the GOP Running Mate?

I presume that, within 24 hours, we'll know who John McCain has chosen as his running mate.

There's a certain amount of pressure being applied by interest groups as the deadline gets closer.

For example, the Washington Post says that "[c]hoosing [Joe] Lieberman or someone else who supports abortion rights, such as former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, would be risky for a candidate who has worked hard to rally conservatives to his side, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

"The survey indicates that 20% of McCain's supporters would be less likely to vote for him if he selects a running mate who supports abortion rights."

A friend of mine was telling me that anyone who votes on the basis of a single issue (like abortion, for example) shouldn't be allowed to vote.

I'm inclined to agree with him — except that, in a democracy, everyone has the privilege of voting — and using whatever information he/she wishes. It does not depend on the individual doing the responsible thing and studying the issues and each candidate's opinions on those issues.

And that's part of what makes it hard to predict what McCain is going to do.

Clearly, McCain doesn't want to alienate part of his political base. Especially if the race is as close as it appears to be.

From that standpoint, one would expect him to choose a pro-life conservative. (I wonder. Does Romney — an habitual flip-flopper — qualify as a pro-life conservative? Not too long ago, he was pro-choice.)

But if what matters the most to McCain is the Iraq War and the global war on terrorism — and a candidate's views on domestic issues don't matter to him (nor does it matter if McCain's running mate "could be someone who voted against the confirmations of conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.") — I could see McCain choosing someone with whom he feels comfortable — like Lieberman or Ridge.

Frankly, I don't know which McCain will make this decision.

Will it be the principled maverick who ran against George W. Bush in 2000?

Or will it be the pandering McCain of 2008, who was last seen in public at Saddleback a couple of weeks ago?

There's a lot of speculation about McCain's running mate — although not nearly as much as there was when Barack Obama was about to introduce Joe Biden as his choice last Saturday.

But many people think they're finding clues in seemingly little things.

• Michael Shear reports, for the Washington Post, that the so-called "Veep Watch" is on "high alert" for clues to the identity of McCain's running mate-to-be.
  
  "The top possibilities continued to be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and ... Lieberman," he writes. "Other names included ... Ridge and Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
  
  "One senior Republican who has talked personally with Romney, Ridge and Pawlenty during the past two days said none of them had been told yet by McCain. 'All of them believe that it's not them,' the GOP source said."


• The Bipartisan Rules blog says "Pawlenty looks to be a much better choice at this stage of the game than does Romney."
  
  The blog lists several "compelling reasons" to choose Pawlenty.
  
  
  1. "Pawlenty has been in McCain's corner ever since McCain announced his candidacy; Romney has been a supporter for about four months."
  
  
  2. "Pawlenty is a true-blue conservative; Romney is a flip-flopper."
  
  
  3. "Pawlenty is a fresh face and 47; Romney is not and is in his early 60s."
  
  
  4. "Pawlenty offers McCain a clear electoral advantage; Romney's advantage in Michigan and the mountain west is somewhat speculative."
  
  
• Marc Ambinder's blog at The Atlantic is reporting that Pawlenty's schedule for Friday has been cleared.
  
  Is that an indication that Pawlenty is preparing to appear with McCain as the designated running mate?
  
  Perhaps.
  
  But, as Ambinder points out, "McCain's campaign could have made similar requests of other candidates. But Pawlenty's is the first we know about."
  
  I would add to that one more thing — it's nearly 10 p.m. here in the Central time zone, and I have seen no similar reports about any of the other prospects.


• "If security sweeps are the giveaway," writes David Drucker in Roll Call, "Romney may be on the brink of being selected as ... McCain’s ... vice presidential running mate."
  
  Drucker reports that "[a]ccording to sources with strong Michigan ties, the Secret Service has conducted a security sweep of the home of Romney’s sister."
  
  But he has a caveat.
  
  "[A] sweep of such a location could have been conducted in advance of Romney appearing as a surrogate — not the vice presidential nominee — at an upcoming McCain campaign stop in Michigan" where Romney was raised and his father was governor.


• It may turn out that McCain chooses a former rival for the nomination to be his running mate.
  
  It wouldn't be the first time. That's what Obama did, after all. John Kerry did it in 2004. Ronald Reagan did it in 1980. John F. Kennedy did it in 1960.
  
  But if National Review's Campaign Spot blog is correct, Fred Thompson isn't going to be the former rival who occupies the No. 2 spot on the GOP's ticket in 2008.
  
  "[T]here's no sign that Fred Thompson is the pick," the blog states — before asking an intriguing question.
  
  "Wouldn't a Biden-Thompson debate be worth the price of admission?"
  
  I don't know if it would resolve anything — but it sure would be entertaining!

One Big Happy Family

---

Four current and former vice presidents
on Inauguration Day 1969.

---

At their national convention in Denver, the Democrats have been putting on a happy, unified face — even the supposed malcontents Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Hillary gave her speech to the delegates on Tuesday, then made various procedural moves on Wednesday to boost Obama's support level among the delegates.

Her husband, the former president, made his speech to the delegates Wednesday night, declaring that Obama (who is about the same age as Bill Clinton was when he first sought the presidency in 1992) is ready to lead the nation in a world that has changed a great deal in 16 years.

It seems to me that the Clintons have done everything they can to help Obama make this convention a success. If he does not receive the "bounce" he expects, he can take that as evidence that there is a (perhaps unidentified) fault within himself and his candidacy that kept it muzzled — and/or his opponents may steal some of his thunder with the expected announcement of John McCain's running mate tomorrow.

• Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin report in Politico that McCain has decided on his running mate and will inform that person today.
  
  (This reminds me a bit of reports I was hearing last week in the hours before Joe Biden was unveiled as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Those reports focused on the fact that Obama had settled on a name, but never mentioned whether Obama had actually asked his choice if he/she would accept.
  
  (That may seem like a mere formality to many observers today, but when I was younger, a presidential nominee still had to ask his choice for running mate to join him on the ticket. And they didn't always accept.
  
  (In 1972, for example, I don't know how many people were offered the second slot on the Democratic ticket before Sen. Tom Eagleton accepted it — and, a few weeks later, after revelations of Eagleton's hospitalization for exhaustion in the 1960s, including some electric shock treatments, prompted him to withdraw, presidential nominee George McGovern went through several additional public rejections before Sargent Shriver agreed to replace Eagleton on the ticket.)
  
  As I mentioned last week, it seems a little arrogant of a presumptive nominee to assume that his choice for running mate will accept his offer.
  
  But, based on what I've read from Allen and Martin, it appears that McCain will make the offer today.


• Elisabeth Bumiller and Michael Cooper report, in the New York Times, that McCain still plans to reveal his choice on Friday.
  
  So, presumably, McCain has a backup plan in place — in case his choice turns him down at the last minute.
  
  If you're looking for clues as to who might be McCain's pick, sources close to the campaign say the top three prospects are:
  
  
  1. Mitt Romney
  
  
  2. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty
  
  
  3. independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut
  
  A little vice presidential trivia here.
  
  Dick Cheney is the 46th vice president of the United States. All but four of the individuals who have served as vice president had backgrounds that included service as governor or in the Congress.
  
  The last one who didn't have that experience in his background was Henry Wallace — who was Franklin D. Roosevelt's vice president through most of America's involvement in World War II.
  
  Wallace had the good fortune of running with Roosevelt when FDR had already served two terms as president. And Wallace had been part of Roosevelt's Cabinet, as secretary of agriculture, from 1933 to 1940.
  
  But, in the early days of the republic, if you wanted to become president, the best way to get on-the-job training was to be secretary of state. That was considered the real stepping stone to the presidency. Six of the 15 presidents who came before Abraham Lincoln had been secretary of state. Five had been vice president.
  
  Politically, the secretary of state may no longer hold that kind of significance. But the job retains its importance in many ways, both in its status as the most significant Cabinet post and its position in the presidential succession.

The Buzz About McCain's Pick

The deadline for announcing John McCain's running mate still appears to be Friday.

I haven't heard his name mentioned much recently, but I'm still predicting that McCain will pick Tom Ridge as his running mate.

Everyone's got an opinion.

• Steven Thomma writes, for McClatchy Newspapers, that McCain is under some pressure with the deadline looming.
  
  Thomma also writes that the "fast-changing landscape in recent days has helped some potential choices and hurt others."
  
  Thomma proceeds to list these changes:
  
  
  1. "McCain has pulled into a neck-and-neck fight with Obama after trailing for weeks."
  
  
  2. "He's shored up support from social conservatives and has seen a payoff in the polls."
  
  
  3. "Obama picked Biden ... which could put a new emphasis on finding someone who could take on Biden in the vice presidential debate this fall."
  
  As a result, he suggests that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney have the inside track. But Pawlenty has said he is happy as governor of Minnesota, and it has been widely reported that McCain doesn't like Romney.
  
  
• Julie Mason writes, in the Houston Chronicle, that one of the senators from my home state of Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, is "getting a push from conservative and other pundits in the lead-up to next week's Republican National Convention."
  
  It seems, as Mason writes, a longshot. Hutchison has spoken openly of her desire to run for governor of Texas in 2010 (even though the incumbent, a fellow Republican, Rick Perry, indicates that he wants to seek another term), so a four-year hitch as vice president doesn't appear to be in her plans.
  
  But, with so many of Hillary Clinton's backers apparently looking for someone to support in November, McCain might be thinking about putting a woman on the ticket.
  
  And Hutchison is Texas' senior senator, with 15 years' experience in the Senate. She was elected to finish the unexpired term of Democrat Lloyd Bentsen, who resigned to take a Cabinet post under Bill Clinton, and she has been re-elected easily ever since.


• If the choice was up to Henry Olsen, I'm not sure who he would pick. But he's pretty clear, in the Wall Street Journal, that he does not believe McCain should put Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman on the ticket.
  
  Olsen points out something that has already been pointed out several times — Republican Abraham Lincoln put Democrat Andrew Johnson on his ticket when he ran for re-election in 1864.
  
  "That episode ended unhappily," Olsen writes, "for reasons directly relevant to the current situation."
  
  Perhaps the most significant point Olsen raises is this: "One must also contemplate the awful possibility that President McCain will not survive his term. Do Republican voters want to see a President Lieberman negotiate with a Democratic Congress on taxes, entitlements, judicial nominees and abortion? To ask this question is to answer it."

Republican Rumblings

We're getting closer to the announcement of John McCain's running mate.

• RealClearPolitics refers to rumors that John McCain will make the announcement on Thursday — instead of Friday, as was originally suggested.
  
  Bad move, says RealClearPolitics. "Obama is going to be the story on Thursday night and the headliner on Friday morning, and McCain shouldn't try to fight it."
  
  RealClearPolitics is referring to a Fox News report.
  
  It does not indicate why McCain would want to move up the announcement to Thursday, but it does observe that Friday will be McCain's 72nd birthday.
  
  If McCain really is considering moving the announcement to Thursday, is it to avoid having renewed scrutiny given to his age?
  
  If McCain is hoping to avoid appearing old, insensitive and out of touch, is that the best way to do it?
  
  It's reminiscent of Harris' Lament — if you're too young to remember, Detective Harris was a character on "Barney Miller," and he used to say about his apartment search in New York City that "all the good ones are taken!"
  
  In the years since "Barney Miller" went off the air, Harris' Lament has been applied to all sorts of things, from the perceived shortage of good, available lovers to the alleged scarcity of memorable website addresses.


• McCain should be aware that there is some evidence that the much-hyped "running mate bounce" is overblown.
  
  A tracking poll conducted by Gallup suggests that Joe Biden's selection changed nothing in the first three-day period following the announcement.
  
  Taking that into consideration — as well as the possibility that McCain doesn't want to announce his choice on his birthday — maybe McCain would be wise to put it off until Saturday.


• Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell may be one of the busiest people at the Democrats' convention, at least in its early stages.
  
  Already, the Morning Call blog quotes Rendell as saying that Tom Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania, will not be McCain's running mate.
  
  The reason given is an apparent guess, based on the fact that Ridge is supposed to introduce McCain at an event in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
  
  From that information, Rendell apparently has concluded that Ridge is not likely to be named McCain's running mate on Friday ...
  
  ... which makes about as much sense (to me) as the guesses that were made about the viability of various Democratic veep prospects based on their speaking assignments at this week's convention.
  
  Rendell, who supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries, has some words for the presumptive Democratic nominee as well.
  
  The Washington Post's blog The Trail quotes Rendell as saying that Obama is "not exactly the easiest guy in the world to identify with."
  
  Rendell's elaboration may be even more damning.
  
  "He is a little like Adlai Stevenson. You ask him a question, and he gives you a six-minute answer. And the six-minute answer is smart as all get out. It's intellectual. It's well framed. It takes care of all the contingencies. But it's a lousy soundbite."
  
  Personally, I admire many of the positions Stevenson took in his career. But Rendell makes a valid point about the lengthy answers not lending themselves to soundbite status.
  
  The only soundbite-worthy phrase that has emerged from the Obama campaign is the slogan "Change We Can Believe In," which Frank Rich of the New York Times suggested, during the weekend, needs to be replaced with something more urgent.

The Revival of Mitt Romney?

Now that Barack Obama has chosen his running mate, attention is gradually shifting to the final piece of the puzzle — who will be John McCain's running mate?

Most of the attention for the next few days will focus on the Democrats and their convention. But the last report I heard was that McCain would announce his choice on Friday — the day after the Democratic convention wraps up.

So I wouldn't be surprised if we hear more and more speculation about the identity of McCain's running mate the farther we get into the week.

• I haven't heard Mitt Romney's name mentioned too often lately in discussions that focus on the identity of John McCain's running mate.
  
  But if the San Francisco Chronicle is correct, Romney might be the answer the Republicans are looking for in the West.
  
  In particular, the Chronicle reports, McCain's campaign would like to inspire the Mormons who live out West.
  
  And not all of them live in Utah. "We have a lot of Mormons in Colorado," a Democratic activist told the Chronicle.
  
  Colorado is already being mentioned by many as a battleground state in the election. So the mere mention of a demographic group that could be a recipient of some attention can be meaningful.
  
  Candidly, however, the Mormon vote doesn't seem to be all that significant in Colorado — roughly 2% of the state's residents are Mormons.
  
  But 2% can be important in Colorado. Yes, Colorado has been in the habit of voting for Republicans, but frequently it's been by slim margins.
  
  George W. Bush received less than 52% of the vote there in 2004 — and less than 51% in 2000. In 1996, Bob Dole's margin of victory over Bill Clinton in Colorado was less than 1.5%.
  
  Colorado has only 9 electoral votes — but in many of the election projections I've seen, that would be enough to tip the balance from one side to the other.
  
  Can McCain overcome his discomfort with Romney and put him on the ticket?
  
  If so, will he be doing it because Romney can make a difference with the Mormon constituency?
• CNN's blog Political Ticker says, "[T]he Republican campaign to take advantage of fresh reports of friction between the Clinton and Obama camps shifts into high gear" with its second advertisement aimed at "wooing the New York senator's disappointed supporters."
  
  Is that an indication that McCain is planning to put a female on the GOP ticket — like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, perhaps?
  
  Obama might not want it that way, but Hillary does seem to be a factor, even though she won't be on the ticket. Rich Lowry writes, in the New York Post, that "[i]t's Hillary's convention. ... [T]he convention narrative revolves around her in important ways."
  
  And Susan Page reports, in USA Today, that a USA Today/Gallup survey of Clinton supporters indicates that less than half are planning to vote for Obama in November.
  
  Sean Wilentz may have the answer for Obama in Newsweek. He points out something that resembles what one of my Clinton-supporting friends said. "Obama must convince the country that he is a man of substance, not just style," Wilentz writes. "History suggests this won't be easy."
  
  The Obama campaign has been dismissive of what the New York Times calls the "Clinton fallout."
  
  Perhaps he shouldn't be so dismissive.
• Bill Kristol, writing in the New York Times, contends that McCain needs a "bold" choice for running mate.
  
  (Palin might be a bold choice, but Kristol doesn't think she has enough experience.)
  
  Kristol thinks Connecticut's Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent, is the choice.
  
  "Lieberman could hold his own against Biden in a debate," Kristol writes (well, I know some Democrats who would cite Lieberman's performance against Dick Cheney as evidence against that).
  
  "He would reinforce McCain’s overall message of foreign policy experience and hawkishness. He’s a strong and disciplined candidate."
  
  OK, I'll concede the last couple of points.
  
  But Kristol sees some drawbacks as well.
  
  "[H]e is pro-abortion rights, and having been a Democrat all his life, he has a moderately liberal voting record on lots of issues."
  
  Of course, if Lieberman wound up on the GOP ticket, he could occupy a unique niche in history as the first Jewish nominee for both parties.

More Responses to Obama's Choice

Today is the day after Joe Biden was introduced to the American public as the running mate on the Democratic ticket. And responses continue to pour in.

• Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen write, in Politico, that Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate tells us five things about the presumptive presidential nominee:
  
  
  1. He's fixing for a fight.
  
  
  2. He's a lot more conventional than advertised.
  
  
  3. He’s insecure about security.
  
  
  4. He’s more worried about Lunchbox Joe than Bubba.
  
  
  5. He doesn't hold a grudge — or at least he doesn't let it get in the way.
  
  I won't elaborate on the points. The post is short. I recommend that all my readers take a few minutes to read it for themselves.


• In what is sure to become familiar fare (for those who watch the Democratic convention this week, it will be familiar by the time Biden gives his acceptance speech), the Washington Post writes in glowing terms of Biden's life of "comebacks" of which the latest is his emergence as Obama's running mate after dropping out of the presidential race in the wake of an ignominious loss in Iowa.
  
  "Setbacks are followed by successes" in Biden's life and career, write Eli Saslow and Amy Goldstein in the Post, "and the cycle repeats. A tragic car accident, brain aneurysms, a plagiarism scandal, two failed presidential runs — nothing has permanently derailed him."
  
  
• But the response in the Washington Post hasn't been uniformly enthusiastic.
  
  In a group asssessment of the choice, Ed Rogers (former White House staffer under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush) says there are three reasons that Republicans should be glad Biden was the choice:
  
  
  1. Biden is not "another lightweight left-wing snob."
     
     "Everyone who cares about good government and serious politics can imagine him as president," Rogers says, "unlike Obama."
  
  
  2. "Biden has no following in a key state or among any particular voter group that will help Obama appeal to the center, nor does Biden reinforce Obama's appeal as an agent of change."
  
  
  3. "On any given day, there is a good chance that he will say something that could destroy the Democratic ticket or at least hurt its chances in November."
  
  Rogers says that, as a McCain supporter, he is "relieved and encouraged by the Biden selection."

(Pardon a personal note here: There is, I believe, something to be said about the fact that the Congress is, in part, to blame for the giant sucking sound we hear, of American lives and treasure being lost in Iraq. Congress has been the enabler of problematic behavior in this dysfunctional relationship that has existed between Congress and the Bush administration.

(But, as Congress has continued to authorize exorbitant defense spending, even as the economy has soured, are any of the presumptive nominees in a position to cast any stones?)

In the same assessment piece, Rutgers University history professor David Greenberg says, "Obama blew it." Greenberg says Obama's "over-the-top coyness damages him three ways —"


1. "First, it feeds the idea that he's a narcissist."


2. "Second, after so much hype, the choice could only disappoint. And really, we waited three months for Joe Biden?"


3. "Third, the protracted process short-sightedly allowed Hillary Clinton's name to re-enter the veepstakes — a move bound to further alienate her backers when she wasn't selected."
   
   We might get an idea how Hillary's supporters feel about the selection process when, on Wednesday, she is reportedly going to tell her delegates that they are free to vote for Obama on the first ballot. Will they still vote for Hillary? Will there be a floor demonstration?
   
   Stay tuned.


• Elizabeth Holmes writes, in the Wall Street Journal, that Biden and McCain share "striking similarities."
  
  "In their roughly 57 combined years in the U.S. Senate, Sen. McCain and Sen. Biden have forged much the same path," Holmes writes. "The pair has each earned a reputation for a quick tongue and become outspoken on foreign policy."


• The sub-headline on the article by Mike Dorning and James Oliphant in the Chicago Tribune summed up what the Obama camp appears to want voters to see when they look at the Obama-Biden ticket: "Experience. Foreign policy chops. Fists for a political fight. And, if Obama's lucky, an appeal to white working-class voters."


• Frankly, I expected to read something about the selection in Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times this morning.
  
  But she seems to be too busy obsessing over John McCain's "dalliances that caused his first marriage to fall apart after he came back from his stint as a P.O.W. in Vietnam" — and the "powerful get-out-of-jail-free card McCain had earned by not getting out of jail free."
  
  Although the article was written by someone who was adamantly anti-Hillary during the primaries, the argument sounds like it could have been fashioned by a feminist Clinton supporter in a general election campaign against McCain. It doesn't really seem like a plausible complaint coming from an Obama backer.
  
  Presumably, this is in response to the subject that was raised by the revelations in recent weeks about John Edwards' affair — although Edwards is never mentioned in Dowd's column today.
  
  And Edwards only appeared to threaten Obama's run to the nomination briefly — and in a marginal sort of way, at that, after finishing a fairly distant second to him in the Iowa caucus on January 3. In fact, Edwards found himself competing with Clinton for second place that night. When he came in far behind both Obama and Clinton the next week in New Hampshire, Edwards prepared to throw in the towel.
  
  Perhaps Dowd will have something to say about Biden in her next regularly scheduled column — which presumably will be Wednesday, the day Biden is supposed to accept the nomination.


• Dowd's colleague, Frank Rich, doesn't mention the running mate, either — except tangentially. But he may have provided a hint of what may be to come when the Democrats convene this week in Denver.
  
  "Change We Can Believe In" was an effective slogan during the Democrats' "familial brawl," Rich says in the New York Times, but now the opponents are McCain and the Republican Party. The message must be blunt.
  
  So it's time, Rich says, to put to rest "Change We Can Believe In" in favor of something like "Change Before It’s Too Late."
  
  If so, perhaps that puts the Biden selection into its proper perspective.

If that doesn't do the trick, here's something that might.

Yesterday, I wrote that the selection "was made with no apparent consideration given to the effect it might have on the electorate in November."

But Dan Balz raises a point in the Washington Post that I hadn't thought of.

"The die may have been cast for Biden ... when Russian forces invaded Georgia this month," Balz writes. "Until then, Obama may have believed he had more latitude in his choice, that he could worry less about dealing with his perceived weaknesses and instead pick a running mate who would more clearly buttress the change and generational messages at the heart of his candidacy.

"Once the tanks rolled, the weight of evidence shifted toward someone who would raise no questions in the area of national security. ... Among those under serious consideration, Biden, 65, was at the top on national security credentials."

In that Washington Post assessment piece I mentioned earlier, Todd Harris, a former McCain spokesman, refers to the Russia-Georgia clash and writes that Biden "brings decades of foreign policy experience to the ticket — and more than a little baggage."

Another example of how unforeseen events have the power to move campaigns in unexpected ways.