Politics

As the days wind down to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, people are growing more and more curious about who Obama will select for the VP role. Moreover, my friends have even been debating when Obama will announce and which possible days would make the bigger headlines. We set a friendly wager, each selecting a candidate and announcement day, and sit on the edges of our seats, waiting for Obama’s announcement.

“He has to announce on the 19th,” one of my friends declared. “He gets back from vacation in Hawaii over the weekend, he’ll meet with the VP on Monday, and will announce Tuesday. It’s a sure bet.” However, this friend went with more of an underdog for his choice of candidate: General Wes Clark. Originally slated as a top contender for VP, his comments stating that McCain’s war record wasn’t enough to qualify him as president, took him out of the running in many people’s minds.

“Biden on the 20th,” another friend suggested. Joe Biden, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, would bring to the job the foreign policy experience people say Obama lacks. Having been in the Senate nearly four decades, however, choosing Biden for VP would go against Obama’s message of change in Washington.

With those options taken, I put my bet in for Evan Bayh on the 21st. This Indiana Senator sits on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, which could be seen as a way of countering McCain’s military experience. Bayh was also governor of Indiana, giving him executive experience, as well. I felt that his younger image would pair nicely with Obama’s youthful energy in the campaign.

Another strong contender for the Veepstakes is Tim Kaine, the Democratic governor of Virginia. He endorsed Obama early in the primary race and is also considered a “different kind of politician.” Fellow Virginian Mark Warner, Democratic candidate for Senate and former contender for VP, will give the keynote address at the Convention. This could either signal that Kaine will not be nominated veep, or it could mean that Kaine is still in the running, and Obama will focus more on Virginia this election.

The Obama campaign has announced that both Biden and Bayh will speak in Denver on Wednesday, August 27. Wednesday is the night that the vice presidential nominee will speak, and the theme is Securing America’s Future. I guess all I can do is sit, wait, and cross my fingers that I win this bet.

It’s not unusual for presidential candidates to move closer to the center for the general election than they were for the primary, hoping to pick up votes of moderate or undecided voters. But Barack Obama’s whole campaign was about how he was a different type of politician – going against the Washington norms and bringing honesty and ingenuity to the nation’s capital.

Is Obama reverting back to standard Washington ways or does this imply that he has reached a form of post-partisan politics? Some feel that shifting views is necessary in order to be elected, which is the campaign’s primary goal. Others view it as a way to show adaptability—a means of proving that the candidate is not stubborn and stuck in his ways.

Will Obama’s “zigzag to the center,” as Bob Herbert of the New York Times referred to it, be able to pick up enough moderates to make up for the voters he turns off by changing his ways?

Will John McCain start sliding toward the middle like his opponent? Or is it likely that his views will become more conservative to appeal to the right?

Trying to bring the Democratic Party back together, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will meet today in Unity, N.H., to encourage their bases to join and elect Obama as President. Now, not only does the location for this union blatantly drill the theme into voters’ heads, it serves another symbolic purpose – both candidates received exactly 107 votes there in the January primary.

Just last night, Obama wrote Clinton a check for $2,300, the maximum amount an individual can donate to a campaign, to help make up for the millions of dollars of her own money that Clinton poured into her campaign. Though his contribution doesn’t break the bank, it symbolizes the Obama campaign’s efforts to make amends with his former rival’s – while trying to recruit the Clinton supporters to his camp.

Was this gesture enough to encourage Clinton supporters to do the reciprocal action and donate $2,300 to Obama’s campaign? Now that Obama has declined using public funds for his campaign, he must bank – pun intended – on the people who have previously thrown their weight and wallets behind Clinton.

Will a symbolic “unity” event in Unity do the trick? What do the Democrats need to do to rally the base?

Now that Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president and Hillary Clinton has thrown her weight behind her formal rival, we must look toward the next step. All the talk in Washington lately has been trying to predict who each candidate will chose as his running mate. Obama has come out and said that this is the most important decision he will make before taking on the presidency.

Diving into the speculations, there are many options these men can look at. Clearly, many people in the Democratic voting base would love to see Clinton on the ticket with Obama, having the politicians work together to overcome their 18-month battle and unite the Democratic party. Others say that if Obama includes Clinton on his ticket, it detracts from his message of Change, going back to the Clintonian political era in the West Wing.

A suggestion for Obama running mate that sounds intriguing is General Wesley Clark. He has a similar voting record to Clinton’s, which could appease the Clinton base. He also holds a military record that could rival John McCain’s, yet he opposes the war in Iraq. He would bring experience in national security to Obama’s ticket, where so many criticize Obama’s inexperience.

Fewer rumors have been circulating about McCain’s pick for VP, although last night I heard a humorous choice. A radio personality at an awards dinner joked that McCain had selected Ted Williams to join his ticket, because 13 years his senior, Williams would make 71-year-old McCain seem younger.

Who would you like to see on each candidate’s ticket? What would they bring to the election and administration?

This weekend culminated a lot of the pressing issues of the presidential campaign. Barack Obama and his family resigned from their church, stating that because of the controversies surrounding Rev. Wright’s sermons, they can no longer worship in peace. He said he would prefer to worship in a place that doesn’t feel like a political circus, like Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ has become.

Additionally, the rules committee of the DNC decided that it will seat the delegates of Michigan and Florida at the Democratic National Convention in August. This comes as both an advantage and a blow to Hillary Clinton. She stated all along that she wanted all votes to be counted because it wasn’t fair to the Michigan and Florida residents that voted if the delegates could not be seated at the convention. Now that they have seats, but only count for half of a vote, the delegate math still does not look favorable for Clinton. What do you think will happen?