Sunday, February 15, 2004
Like, Maybe, Ohio
An Iowa friend sent me a funny e-mail comment on the prospect of Governor Tom Vilsack as John Kerry's running mate--"Vilsack is not a very dynamic person, nothing like Edwards. (He would be wallpaper in a debate with Cheney, I'm afraid.) He's certainly wholesome, though, and he and Christie might be a milk-and-cookie balance to the glamorous, rich, maybe-a-little-too-interesting Heinz-Kerrys. With those Bo-Peep hats, Christie looks too darn sweet to think an evil thing about--you just KNOW she makes casseroles with cream of mushroom soup." (She is contemporary enough, however, to have her own website. Can't find any hat pictures on it, though.)
Latest VP speculation--Kerry/Gephardt. John J. Miller of National Review Online (a publication that would not wish any Democrat well) runs down the case for several Democrats, naming Gephardt "the ultimate safe pick." Political Wire quotes columnist Robert Novak (somebody else not exactly friendly to Democrats) as surmising that a Kerry/Gephardt ticket would mean a "non-Southern strategy"--hang onto the blue states Gore won last time by securing the industrial states, and maybe winning Ohio this time.
But God, talk about charisma-free--and talk about the utter opposite of a paradigm-shifting ticket.
I read somewhere last week (can't remember where, so I can't link) that one piece of conventional wisdom regarding the 2004 election isn't necessarily true--that if the Democrats win every state they won last time and pick up just one more somewhere, they'll win the election. Following redistricting after the 2000 census, the electoral vote has been redistributed--Bush's states are now worth 14 more electoral votes than they were four years ago. So the Democrats will need to turn one big one they didn't get last time (like, maybe, Ohio).
Maybe Kerry should pick somebody from Ohio.
An Iowa friend sent me a funny e-mail comment on the prospect of Governor Tom Vilsack as John Kerry's running mate--"Vilsack is not a very dynamic person, nothing like Edwards. (He would be wallpaper in a debate with Cheney, I'm afraid.) He's certainly wholesome, though, and he and Christie might be a milk-and-cookie balance to the glamorous, rich, maybe-a-little-too-interesting Heinz-Kerrys. With those Bo-Peep hats, Christie looks too darn sweet to think an evil thing about--you just KNOW she makes casseroles with cream of mushroom soup." (She is contemporary enough, however, to have her own website. Can't find any hat pictures on it, though.)
Latest VP speculation--Kerry/Gephardt. John J. Miller of National Review Online (a publication that would not wish any Democrat well) runs down the case for several Democrats, naming Gephardt "the ultimate safe pick." Political Wire quotes columnist Robert Novak (somebody else not exactly friendly to Democrats) as surmising that a Kerry/Gephardt ticket would mean a "non-Southern strategy"--hang onto the blue states Gore won last time by securing the industrial states, and maybe winning Ohio this time.
But God, talk about charisma-free--and talk about the utter opposite of a paradigm-shifting ticket.
I read somewhere last week (can't remember where, so I can't link) that one piece of conventional wisdom regarding the 2004 election isn't necessarily true--that if the Democrats win every state they won last time and pick up just one more somewhere, they'll win the election. Following redistricting after the 2000 census, the electoral vote has been redistributed--Bush's states are now worth 14 more electoral votes than they were four years ago. So the Democrats will need to turn one big one they didn't get last time (like, maybe, Ohio).
Maybe Kerry should pick somebody from Ohio.
