Clinton as Obama's Vice Presidential Running Mate?

Comment on The Field, 5/7/08,

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=1171#comments

There is only one characteristic that Senator Clinton would bring to the Democratic ticket that’s been proven by the 2008 primaries to work in drawing significant numbers of additional voters to the polls: she is an articulate, intelligent woman, who plausibly could be president. That’s why older women have been her most stalwart constituency.

However, the Democratic Party is no longer short of women with gravitas at the national level; Clinton is not unique. And the most compelling one, by far, is Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. More feminine than ferocious, she is endearing on camera but also visibly intelligent and calmly articulate, is natural in manner and not a self-absorbed performance artist like so many politicians, has captured the hearts of her Republican state, was raised in a politically savvy family (her father was governor of Ohio), and would terrify any strategist for the McCain campaign, since she would immediately put in play Midwestern states that would otherwise be safely Republican and reinforce Obama’s appeal to independents and moderate Republicans everywhere. Had Bush lost just the state of Kansas in ‘00, he wouldn’t have been president, and McCain is very unlikely to have any greater margin of error. A great offense gains yardage on the other team’s turf and doesn’t merely defend its own.

Take another look at her endorsement of Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nHp90Z2NJk, and try to tell me you can’t see that there’s some special political chemistry at work here, in such a ticket.

The only obvious objection is that a governor with no national security or foreign policy experience wouldn’t strengthen the ticket in that respect. But Obama will not be elected because a vice presidential candidate has more such experience than he does; indeed, it might be seen as a concession that he himself is under-qualified if he chose a running-mate who had that experience. And just how empathetically and knowledgeably would a retired general, or Senator Webb of Virginia whose sole expertise is defense, answer questions from a nurse whose house is being foreclosed? Obama will dissolve any qualms about his knowledge of national security with how he answers questions about such issues in the debates against McCain, or he won’t — and if he doesn’t, his vice presidential running mate won’t be able to bail him out.

Visualize these two people together on the podium in Denver, and try to imagine a more attractive ticket, a more natural pair with nevertheless different characteristics, or two candidates who could better model the ethnic, age and gender diversity of America while still being from the Heartland and not from Washington. “Change You Can Believe In” would have an even bigger meaning after this Illinois man and this Kansas woman, this sensational senator and this seasoned governor, were nominated in Denver.