ex-idaho

Since the 50's the VP has been someone that offers something that the nominee lacks. The only example I can think of that went against this trend would be Clinton-Gore. Both were southern moderates.

The Moveon.org membership is overwhelmingly made up of anti-war liberals that tilt heavily to the left. Thats why Kucinich came in 2nd, not because he is the second most likely to get the nomination.

Dean-Kerrey would never happen. There is to much bad blood between them. They have a major personality issue. Also Kerrey is also from New England so that would leave out the South which many believe a southern candidate on the ticket is essential to winning.

clark

The voters in the Moveon poll were primarily in the most leftleaning, say, 15-20% of the populace. When only they are polled, Kucinich does ok. When Democrats in general are polled, Kucinich finished 8th or 9th out of the nine candidates. I anticipate he'll be the first or second to drop out of the race.

THOUGHTfully Yours,
Clark

Darwin26

i'd really like to see Dean pick Arianna Huffington for VP.

i want a VP with brains and courage. She has that and has proved it over and over.

marylandnaturegirl

I mentioned the prospect of a Dean/Clark ticket last month on this or the Sep of Church and state message board.

I was further encouraged of Dean/Clark when I was in Lake Placid and got to meet Dean and photograph both of them at a Rural Dems convention.

I heard that Dean and Clark had a meeting right after they spoke at the convention.

I hope it went well. I like both of them a lot.

As I said before, Dean/Clark ticket would be unstoppable.

We need to try to reduce/lessen the republicans cheating methods this time around.

Bill

If Dean says that Clark is the sort of person he would like to surround himself with as President, he may be thinking more of Clark taking Rice's position as National Security Advisor, to which end Dean might well be talking to Clark about taking a similar advisory role in the Dean campaign. That would be my guess from reading the tea leaves.

As Clark mentioned, Clinton/Gore was a bit of an aberration, since they were both from the same region of the country. However, Clinton ran as a Washington "outsider" and Gore, as the son of a former senator, was perceived to be one of the consummate Washington "insiders," so that is what Gore brought to the Clinton/Gore ticket: inside the beltway legitimacy.

My personal view on the best possible VP choice for Dean right now would be John Edwards. As ex-idaho said: While Bob Graham would also qualify, I don't have a very favorable view of Graham at this point as a solid presidential contender. He was late into the race, and hasn't raised much money. I disagree with clark that Kucinich will be the first or second to drop out of the race. Kucinich knows that he is tilting at windmills, but he is doing it to make a point. Ideologues rarely actually drop out, and Kucinich is an ideologue to the core (and even more to the point, the two tail-enders, Rev. Sharpton and Senator Mosely-Braun, are also ideologues who most likely will not formally drop out, either).

It is the middle tier of candidates which is most likely to provide the first drop-outs, and right now, that tier most firmly contains two senators: Lieberman and Graham. They either "get traction" in this quarter or they will be gone before the end of this year. long before the first vote is cast in New Hampshire or an Iowa caucus is held.

The top tier of candidates (at this point, anyway) are Edwards, Kerry, Gephardt, and Dean, and Dean's challenge for this quarter is to push Gephardt down to the second tier so as to kill his campaign before the end of the year as well.

The main reason for this brief review of campaign standings is to note that, at this point anyway, Edwards has been the top money raiser and seems to have some real "pull" with southern moderates. For essentially the same reasons that JFK picked LBJ to be his running mate, Howard Dean would be well advised to consider picking John Edwards, if Dean gets to the point where the choice is his to make. This satisfies not only those who believe in the "southern strategy," but also those who believe that a "liberal" like Dean needs a "moderate" like Edwards to balance the ticket (and frankly, I have a very hard time classifying Dean as a true "liberal," since he has an "A" rating from the NRA and is in favor of a balanced federal budget, both decidedly non-liberal positions).

But anyway, my choice at this juncture would be DEAN/EDWARDS, for the very-pragmatic reason of BEAT BUSH!!!!

== Bill

Tristan Scott

I see Edwards/Clark as our best ticket at this point.

cheetah

Do you have specific ideas? If so, I am ready to get started toward that goal NOW!

capsaicin67

Dean/Clark would be of interest. It would be helpful for him to get someone with beltway+foreign policy credibility on board and this looks to be the closest he is likely to get to that.

All the big league Dems have too much ego invested and are too blinded by their own desires to be career politicians to join-up with Dean. Kerry, Hillary et al would never play second fiddle to Dean. And Dean, I doubt, would humble himself to play second to them. Kucinich is out of the question for the reasons already covered by others.

Dean needs a running mate that looks like they can be moderate, strong on defense, and that has credibility in foreign policy and beltway politics.

That being said, my somewhat dreamish ticket would be Hillary/Biden with Clark as Sec of Defense, Nader as Attorney General, Bill Clinton as Sec of State [is the latter legal?]. So on and so forth.

I like Biden when I hear him and wish he would run in some capacity though I'm certain he's not perfect. But he knows the game and seems level-headed overall and has the qualities Dean lacks somewhat.

Gephardt is saying pretty good things but I think he's too much of a career politico to have the courage to doing anything truly progressive or courageous on much of any front. And then he gets religious and tells you how he and his wife prayed for their son blah blah blah. And that clinches it for me----phony panderer at best.

d'naturalist

Well, to quote myself from a similar thread that didn't get much attention...
I'm not sure Gephardt's a major player anymore -- it looks more and more like it's coming down to Dean & Kerry. With a Yank as candidate for prez, a southerner makes sense for VP. Clark's from Arkansas and Edwards from one of the Carolinas. I'm not sold on Graham, but that might just be because all the other Grahams I can think of seem to be fundies. I do think General Clark will either be the VP candidate or otherwise highly placed in the administration.


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Jolimont

Did you hear Dean on NPR this morning? He did a FANTASTIC job! Way better than on Meet the Press! You can listen right here: www.npr.org