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And we’ll find out the VP…right after this break.
I’m sorry, but this is getting ridiculous. Both McCain and Obama have been playing this game for about a week now, dangling the carrot just out of reach, creating speculation and buzz as to who they have picked as running mates. This is absurd; it simply detracts from the message that both of them are trying to get out there.
Just tell us already and we can get back to talking about stuff that really matters…like how Britney got thin so quickly!
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15 comments to “And we’ll find out the VP…right after this break.”
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23. August 2008 at :
And for those people who log on to AM first thing in the morning for all of your news, Biden got the nod.
23. August 2008 at :
Speaking of Vice Presidential running mates, this morning at synagogue I listened to several people say that if McCain chose Lieberman to run with him they would support him. Last night at the Met’s game I listened to a functionary in the Nassau County Democratic Party say that he was so disappointed with Obama that if McCain chose Lieberman he would support McCain.
What do you fellas think of the idea of a McCain Lieberman ticket? Even though it turns off the conservative right wing of the Republican Party, does it attract enough disenchanted Democrats and Independents to elect McCain?
I think that McCain and Lieberman are actually friends and are able to work together quite well. Choosing Lieberman would restore McCain’s maverick status with the country and might just get him elected. The question is, would he lose so many right wing votes so that he couldn’t win the traditional Republican states? On the other hand, would he gain in states like Colorado and Wyoming and Montana which value independence of thought and action. Could he win if he chooses McCain? Would you support him, Eric? How about you Scott?
23. August 2008 at :
I think that Lieberman is one of the most sellout congressmen of all time. I used to support him before he began to line up with the rank and file of the conservative movement. This guy sold out everyone who ever supported, all the while lying to his constituents to keep his seat. He ran in the last primary and lost to newcomer Ned Lamont. The honorable thing to do would have been to back the will of the people and throw his support behind the party’s chosen candidate. Instead, he decided to run as an independent. This worked in his favor, as the Republicans failed to field a candidate that could be seen as anything but a joke. So failing that, the RNC actually threw some support Lieberman’s way. He also made several promises to the Democratic faithful, such as continuing to caucus with the democrats.
Since being reelected to his Senate seat, he has consistently been a thorn in the side of the same issues that he swore to continue to uphold during his campaign. He has also supported nearly every republican policy, especially those regarding the Iraq war.
Over the past several months Lieberman has taken every opportunity to skewer Obama and Clinton, members of the party he still supposedly caucuses with.
So no, there is no way on god’s green earth I would vote for a McCain/Lieberman ticket. To be fair, though, I think that McCain/anyone is a repugnant ticket!
23. August 2008 at :
I think what Lieberman did was exceptional. We need more independent thinkers in our government who can support intelligent policy no matter what party it comes from.
24. August 2008 at :
It’s funny to me that anyone would vote one way or another because of the vice presidential ticket. This is very short-term thinking. Who was Jimmy Carter’s vp?!
It’s not necessarily a road to the white house. It is, by itself, a nearly meaningless role. Cheney gets a lot of credit, but it’s a unique situation. The vp goes back to a level of involvement that the President likes. You can’t expand the role of the job. If you’re an influential counselor to the pres, great, if not, you’re nothing (except in senate ties).
I’m fascinated that jews would care about a lieberman vp slot. Under Mccain! That’s suicide. That’s a great way to align judiasm with a continuation of all the worst policies and pandering of the republican side. I don’t put much stock in the first-to-hold-this-job bs. We’re not an oppressed minority! Joe: sit it out!
24. August 2008 at :
Let me ask this, can McCain win if he chooses Lieberman as his VP?
Now there isn’t much time to answer this because the decision will probably come out today.
24. August 2008 at :
I’m for it. What I realize is this country is about to take a sharp turn to the left. Josh has written about it before, and we’ve debated it ad nauseam, whether or not it is the right direction for this country to head into. Despite my own views on the matter (allowing a free market to be the allocator of capital rather than the government is all in all a better mechanism) I’m preparing for the shift.
I don’t think I’m alone, and I think the Republicans realize this as well. They put McCain out there as their candidate someone who can hold the party line on issues like taxes (yes, I know, he first voted against the Bush tax cuts) but yet say the right thing on things that make the left somewhat happy, such as the environment. Adding Lieberman to that mix is another tactic to attract some people who before may not have considered voting Republican. In this case, the most obvious new demographic are the Jews who will now see a strong pro-Israel ticket in a world that is very anti-Israel (read: Iran).
So what does this mean for the election? Jews are not exactly a huge voting bloc, but they can tip the balance. Florida now goes solid for the Republicans. I think it enters New York into the mix, forcing Obama to spend more time and money here than he would prefer. Connecticut seems to like Lieberman and will probably end up in the McCain camp. So McCain can worry a little bit less about Colorado and Michigan. At the same time, it might piss off the evangelicals to the point of no return for the Republicans. Even though it may be too late to put their own guy on the ticket now, they may very well sit this one out. So America gets President Jump Shot.
Now, if I may, I’d like to interject a personal anecdote. I once had a conversation with a Republican Senator. It was in the summer of 2004, so before Lieberman “went rogue.”
I asked him about Democrats he respected and worked well with, and the first name he said was Lieberman.
I forget his exact wording but he talked about how honest, and morally straight, Lieberman is and how much he respected his opinion and stance on the issues. This established for me some context on how Lieberman works with all of his Senate colleagues, not just the ones on his side of the aisle.
This gets me a little more excited about the possibility of McCain/Lieberman.
24. August 2008 at :
Just as a follow up, this afternoon, at the bakery where I went for lunch the people told me that they were not at all excited about Obama and would vote for McCain if he selected Lieberman as his running mate. I should point out that they expected him to select “The Mormon from Massachusetts,” to placate the right wing of his party. They were less than enthusiastic about his chances of winning with Mitt Romney, although they felt that he too was much more moderate then he had been making himself out to be. They were very disappointed that Hillary didn’t get selected as the candidate and disappointed that she didn’t get the nod for vice president.
I don’t know what this means for the general public but the bakery is run by four sisters who don’t usually see things exactly the same.
I’m still waiting for McCain to decide.
24. August 2008 at :
Interesting.
I think the Mormon from Mass (or Michigan, or Utah, or wherever he is “from” this week) would actually piss off the far right wing than the Jew from Connecticut. The right wing does not like Mormons. They see the Mormon faith as a corruption of Christianity. And let’s be fair, as competition for potential converts. (The Mormons are very aggressive recruiters).
Even though I’d like to see McCain/Lieberman, I think it will end up being McCain/boring white guy - someone like Pawlenty from Minnesota.
24. August 2008 at :
I will preface this by saying that there is no evidence that suggests the choice of running mate has a formidable impact on the outcome of the election.
McCain choosing Leiberman may give him a boost in NY, CT and FL (although FL is likely to go for McCain anyway and NY probably won’t no matter who his running mate is). Choosing Leiberman potentially hurts him in other parts of the country, doing more damage electorally than the possible help he’ll pick up in NY and CT. No way it’s Leiberman.
25. August 2008 at :
Why not put a woman on the ticket. That might draw a significant number of women who supported Hillary to his side. No matter what he does he is going to lose the extreme right wing because they don’t trust him to begin with. A moderate like Susan Collins of Maine would draw a lot of votes from the moderates and the undecideds. It might also help save the GOP in the Northeast, where by all accounts, they are going to suffer more defeats than ever. It might also give new life to the moderate Republicans, a breed that has been shrinking for the past 8 years.
25. August 2008 at :
A Susan Collins would dovetail nicely with what I see as a general leftish shift in American politics. I don’t know enough about her politics to talk intelligently about her as a viable vice presidential candidate, but it would be interesting to see if they would position such a nominee as a revival of the Rockefeller Republicans. This would be a good move on McCain’s part as it would distance him from Bush while sticking to this wing’s idea of bigger goverment, better managed.
The real story will be what the conservatives do this year. There is no way in Hades they’ll vote for Obama. Particularly not after he signed on Biden. The ticket is too liberal for their liking. But as I stated previously, McCain plus a centerist Republican or Independent will piss them off. So the question becomes a) do the “hold their noses” and vote for McCain because of their fear of a Liberal domination in the Senate and White House, b) do they sit this one out, showing their power to deliver Republicans vicotries and demand a more social conservative in 2012 or c) do they write in their candidate (question is, who is that? Huckabee? I hope not) so as to not compromise on their values but to still participate in the electoral process.
If McCain picks a center candidate as VP, I think the answer will be B. There will be a lot of talk from ministers and conservative leaders about how they brought the Republican party up from nothing (read: the 70s) and have stuck with them through thick (Reagan) and thin (Bush) and this ticket ignores that. So they’ll sit it out, give the country Obama and a liberal Congress so the Republican party will come crawling back to them in ‘12.
I hope this isn’t the case, because the last thing the country needs are arbitrary windfall profit taxes and trade restrictions, but the Republicans have made their own bed…
25. August 2008 at :
If McCain gets in with a centrist ticket and does a reasonably good job governing the country he refurbishes the Republican banner. Go back to being the environmental party and he wins back some more people. If he returns the party to the proper enforcement of anti discrimination policies, remembering that it was the Republicans who actually helped put the civil rights laws through, and were supported until the great depression by most African Americans, he will get still more followers. The only group that may be lost is the extreme right wing of the party, and they have recently caused more problems than usual for the Republicans.
But, remember this, whatever party stays in power too long becomes impossibly corrupt, so we need to watch the Democrats if they stay in power too long.
25. August 2008 at :
So lots of discussion on the Republican side of the ticket. What do folks think about Biden on the Dems side?
25. August 2008 at :
Personally, I don’t think that he brings very much to the ticket. He has a big uncontrolled mouth that has gotten him into trouble in the past and I am relatively certain he will cause problems when he is released from his “good behavior.”
He does give the ticket some foreign policy experience and given what is happening in Europe and the Old Soviet Union today that will be of some value, but, he has never been a decision maker himself; none of these Senators has ever been an executive. Most of our very best presidents have had executive experience, neither McCain or Obama has had any. Writing legislation doesn’t teach you how to govern. Biden has only been a legislator. We could have used a Richardson or a Sibelius in there because they know how to govern.
Incidentally, Hillary never governed a thing in her life either so she wouldn’t have been a bargain either.
You don’t need foreign policy experience to be an effective leader; Teddy Roosevelt’s foreign policy experience consisted of riding a horse up San Juan Hill and killing Spanish soldiers. FDR had been secretary of the Navy and that wasn’t so much. Both had been governors of New York, which is a tough job for anyone. All of the Generals who were president had executive experience leading men, and some of them were good presidents. Harry Truman had experience running a clothing store, but no foreign policy experience before serving in the Senate.
anyway, I think that Obama needed a woman on the ticket and he blew it.