Veep Veep!

The BooMan's analysis of who *should* be Obama's veep is scary good, as usual. In lieu of me trying to do anything, just read his take. Anyone in his top five would be a home run, considering the rest.

The Good Picks

1. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius- If Obama can open up a decent gender gap, he can cruise to victory and open up avenues for downticket upsets all across the country. Rarely have we had a female prospect as strong as Sebelius. She is a staunchly pro-choice Catholic with roots in the Cincinnati area. She is a very popular red-state governor. She has executive experience and a record of working across party lines. There are no candidates that better fit in with Obama's post-partisan brand. We don't need a national-security running mate that a la Dick Cheney mainly serves to highlight Obama's thin resume on those issues. We need someone that reinforces his style of governance.

2. Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed- Sen. Reed is a soft-spoken veteran of the 82nd Airborne that serves on the Armed Services Committee. He has the kind of military bearing that Wesley Clark so conspicuously lacks, but he also has one of the best voting records of any member of the Senate. He won't upstage Obama, even on national security, but he will help provide a comfort level that the Obama administration will be well-led. Reed is a staunchly pro-choice Catholic with a 4-star personal story. His father was a World War Two vet who made his living as a janitor and whose son earned a spot at West Point and went on to get a Harvard Law Degree and become a U.S. Senator. Jack Reed is like a more progressive, more accomplished, more inspirational version of Rep. Patrick Murphy.

3. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown- Sen. Brown is a freshman or he would be higher on my list. As a former member of the House Progressive Caucus, he is the most ideologically desirable member on this list. Brown has a rough, workingman's gravelly voice and is a champion of labor unions and the lower middle class. His main attraction, however, is his ability to deliver not just Ohioan votes, but the most needed kind of Ohioan votes. The main knocks on Brown are his lack of experience and the perception that is too liberal. I'd be happy to take our chances.

4. Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd- I'm hearing rumblings that Dodd is out of the running, but he is a very attractive choice who has a few strong downsides. No one was a stronger voice on FISA than Chris Dodd. He is another staunchly pro-choice Catholic. He's fluent in Spanish. No one can dispute his experience. A history of carousing as a younger man and the recent revelations that he enjoyed some seeming preferential terms on a home mortgage (while serving as chair of the Banking Committee) make him somewhat of a risk. He's also getting up in age, he doesn't make any obvious contribution to the Electoral College, and the Republican governor of Connecticut would appoint his replacement. I'd be personally honored to go into battle with Chris Dodd, but there are enough negatives to push him down the list.

5. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer- Schweitzer is running for reelection. His selection as running mate would throw the Montana gubernatorial race into turmoil. He also lacks foreign policy experience and would enter Washington as an inveterate outsider (for good and ill). Yet, better than any other candidate, Schweitzer's candidacy would announce the arrival of the Democrat's intention to rebrand themselves as the party of Civil Libertarian-Democrats. If we want to isolate the Republicans to the Deep South and Border States, this is the pick to further that goal.

Living here in the Cincy area, seeing Sherrod Brown up there is pretty nice. It's helpful that Ohio Governor Ted Strickland is taking most of the heat for Ohio liberals and not Brown. Hell, Brown keeps winning awards people like him so much, and he *would* put Ohio in Obama's camp. With Russ Feingold out of the picture (sigh) I'd like to see Brown, Sebelius, or Chris Dodd get the nod, but the more I read about Jack Reed and Brian Schweitzer, the more I like about them too. As I said, any of BooMan's top five would be an asset to the ticket and the country.