The Candidates
Last night on Hannity & Colmes, Sean Hannity reported that according to his sources in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, Obama has been leaning towards Biden but was only holding back due to a lack of personal comfort with the senator from Delaware.
Today, Biden denied that he will be Obama’s running mate.
Also today, Marc Ambinder received an interesting email regarding Secret Service presence in the state of Rhode Island. That’s right, Rhode Island:
A reader writes: “What about Jack Reed of Rhode Island? A friend there says the town is crawling with Secret Service and government plates. I don’t know any better but to trust him.”
How does Obama pick Biden without picking Biden? By selecting Catholic veteran and Democratic senator Jack Reed.
Do we have any readers from Providence who can confirm or deny presence of Secret Service in the town today?
August 19th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I would love for Reed to be the pick. It would be one of the biggest “no one gives a damn”s ever.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Reed voted against the ban on partial birth abortion.
If Obama picks Reed it puts him firmly in the pro-abortion camp. Reed is about as liberal as they come on social and economic issues.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Yeah there’s a ton o f secret service here in RI. They run around saying ‘we be da secret service’
Give me a break.Marc Ambinder is an asshat.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Reed was a Hillary backer, right? Interesting.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
It’s all a smokescreen…HRC is the pick.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
#5, how?
August 19th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
#5, Joe Biden said, “I am not the GUY”
August 19th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Honestly at this point I’d shrug my shoulders to anyone the Dems want to roll out for VP. The only thing that is going to change momentum as far as I am concerned is a Clinton pick. If it’s Clinton, we’re going to lose our momentum. We might yet be able to get it back, but it will be a big setback and it will take some time because we allowed Hillary to campaign without being bloodied for months so it would serve our interests. In doing so, we allowed her to connect with voters we will need.
Clinton is not perfect but her proximity to Obama would serve to make him seem less foreign and Joe Blow would be more at ease because he’s seen Hillary around for years and it wasn’t all that scary. That’s bad for us. We need to continue to paint Obama as foreign and dangerous. Clinton undercuts that. Anyone else will have a negligible effect, except perhaps someone like Kaine, who could only make things worse for Obama.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
You know, in all honesty, all of the obsession over trying to be the first to guess the VP choices is getting a little of the top. We’re all getting caught up in the most glaring of Washington insider’s games—pretending to be the first to know some bit of insider information. Let’s just relax have a cocktail and see what happens. We’ll all know pretty much at the same time anyway
August 19th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
#8 - Agree to the word. I really don’t care who he names, as long as it’s not Clinton. Bayh, Biden, Kaine, Sebelius, etc… all will ultimately have a pretty negligible effect. They might make a state more competitive, but none comes close to being a game-changer. Hillary, on the other hand, is like an adrenalin shot right into the ticket’s arm and will re-energize the people whose dampened enthusiasm has been keeping Obama down. I’m scared.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
With Bill and Hillary ensconced in the VP’s quarters, I’m not sure that I would want to be carrying Obama’s life insurance policy.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
The real question is whether or not Obama is too arrogant to realize (or care) how helpful Clinton would be. He’s not going to pick her if he believes he can win on his own because he doesn’t like her.
Personally, I hope that the arrogance we’ve seen so many times in this rookie makes him confident enough that he can win this on his own, even though his numbers are declining everywhere except in his “unfavorable’ column.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Kristofer: If Obama picks HRC, he takes McCain’s only viable game changing VP choice (Palin) away while at the same time consolidating the Dem base. Terrifying. Maybe I’m just panicking a bit, but I’ve been scared he’d do this for the past 3 months.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I’m not going to speculate here…but do we have any evidence that the Secret Service is going after Reed?
The Governor of RI IS a GOPer, you know.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
If Obama sinks any lower in the polls between now and next Thursday, Clinton might just end up picking him to be her VP
Don’t forget, Obama hasn’t won jack yet. He doesn’t have enough pledged delegates to win. He needs the Supers. They were all on his jock when he was riding high back in the winter and the spring and blowing McCain away and all the dems thought they had this in the bag so they felt ok with rolling the dice and going for the most liberal president ever. That was back in May…things have changed
If Obama heads into the convention tied or even trailing McCain nationally, and losing to him in the key battlegrounds and the electoral vote, and his vaunted money edge is showing itself to be no big obstacle for McCain, and he picks some lightweight like Kaine or Sebelius…
I would not be shocked if some of those supers start having 2nd thoughts
August 19th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Again, if obama is gonna go down this road, why would he not pick bob kerrey…experience and outsider
August 19th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Let me just state here and now that if Reed is the pick and Gov. Carcieri appoints a Republican to fill the seat, and then that idiot Pat Toomey from Club For Growth tries to stir up trouble with whomever this new gift from the gods… I mean… Republican senator from Rhode Island would be, I’d want to circulate a petition to demand that Toomey gets punched in the face in some how or some way.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
What about Bill Nelson? Florida is the biggest tossup state. If the Dems could win FL, Repubs would pretty much have to sweep all of the other swing states.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
#17, ditto. Attacking Lincoln Chafee was idiotic.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
does RI law prohibit running for one office while holding another?
August 19th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
19, Chafee was good for one thing - a vote for a Republican majority leader, and for Republicans to be commitee chairs. But maybe that’s the best we could have got out of RI.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
One thing to remember when speculating about VP choices: Presidential candidates almost never select a VP candidate that can equal them in both “stage presence” and gravitas. Bush’s selection of Cheney was probably the only choice that approached equality in this area. But generally it is not done. Most politicians are simply to insecure to do so, because it begins to raise questions as to who is really in charge (as with Cheney through most of W’s first term).
August 19th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
act,
No, you can actually run for VP/POTUS and Senate/Congress at the same time.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Perhaps CFG should not have gone after Mr. Chafee. On the other hand, he turned out to be a real loyal Republican didn’t he?
August 19th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
So if Obama does pick Hillary he’s “weak” and if he doesn’t he’s “arrogant”?Is that about right?
August 19th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
#24 - no, he’s weak and arrogant no matter who he picks…
August 19th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Interesting fact;
“Obama has spent more than $2 million on television ads in North Carolina, has opened 16 campaign offices and reportedly has 150 paid staffers in the state.”
August 19th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Hey Kavon!!!
It was a hoax.
http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,24211762-923,00.html
August 19th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
New poll out now. It will be close:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/latest_poll_reveals_430_new?utm_source=embedded_video
August 19th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
If it was all about sevret-service than Mike Huckabee would be the leading contender. I’m not a Huck fan but I read in article where a lady couldn’t get a letter to him at a speaking event due to security. They made her open the letter before they could give it to Mike. They wouldn’t allow it. So this is totally false because Huck won’t be VP.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Obama is picking a “he” as VP. Sorry Hillary.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/your_vp_senator_what_will_he_b.php
August 19th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Let’s be honest people, nobody here knows what the crap is going on.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
clinton is the only surprising, game-changing pick. but obama’s ego would never allow him to share the spotlight for nearly the next decade with the clintons. would it? it would be a case of selling himself out to win the election, but it would ruin his admin. with no repubs to play villain to a total dem majority, the only interesting beltway stories for the pundits would be tales of friction between obama and the clintons. the bickering between staff, hillary vs michell, barry vs bubba, on and on it will drag on as one long drama.
would he really sell his soul for that win? if its hillary, that means his internal numbers may be even worse then the polls we’ve seen. clinton pick is a sign of a desperate man.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
New poll in AZ, with significant anti-Obama sentiment. http://www.azcapitoltimes.com/story.cfm?id=9301
August 19th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Yeah there’s a ton o f secret service here in RI. They run around saying ‘we be da secret service’
LOL.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
# 30 Steve - Huckabee didn’t have any security during the campaign nor does he have any now. That is just a crock, it still amazes me how people make things up about Huckabee on this site.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
#32, Yea. I really can’t stand all the VP talk that’s been going on for the last few days.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Kris,
If you can post the results. I don’t want to sign up to view the story.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
#38
40% McCain
30% Obama
but…there is a huge anti-Obama vote in the state. The GOP sampling seems a little too small in this poll.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Interesting that the Secret Service know the pick already, and it hasn’t leaked. I guess that proves they are the secret service.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:06 am
McCain’s VP might be Tom Davis.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:10 am
*30 - Huckabee was speaking at a Pastors Conference immediately before his Pre-Call Conference. He was explaining how he took his then 12-year-old daughter to Germany to view the effects of the hollocaust and how affected she was. One of the women in the audience wanted Huckabee to meet her daughter. But she could not make it through apparent security lines. She was very much surprised because she had not encountered this heavy security when she attended a state conference at which he was the keynote speaker. Furthermore, she had a birthday card in an envelope for (which also contained a HuckPac donation); two “burly security guys” required her to open up the envelope before they brought it to him.
Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t make a situation untrue. For two days, Huckabee has been traveling in Jerusalem sponsored by a New York jewish congressman and the Jewish Reclamation Group. He has been interviewed by over a dozen papers in fairly glowing terms. Just because you don’t like him doesn’t make his interviews untrue — nor the glowing remarks of the NY congressman and other jewish leaders including the man who many believe who be the next Jewish prime minister.
August 20th, 2008 at 2:25 am
41. . . Didn’t he vote against the Surge?
August 20th, 2008 at 4:38 am
Sitting Senator / Sitting Senator it worked so great for Kerry why not try it again with the inexperienced one at the top!
Yeah that’s the ticket.