Sam Nunn

Evan Bayh has now been a serious vice presidential contender for three consecutive elections. In 2000, he was one of Al Gore’s four finalists (Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and John Edwards were the others), in 2004 he was given a serious look by Kerry’s campaign, and this year he is – by most press accounts – on Barack Obama’s very short list.

Maybe three times will prove the charm, and maybe not. Certainly, this story – which raises all sorts of conflict of interest questions about the seven corporate boards on which Bayh’s wife serves – won’t help his chances.

If Obama doesn’t pick him, Bayh will probably just go through this whole process again in four years or eight years or whenever a Democratic presidential nominee next needs a running mate.  read more »

If, as I have argued relentlessly that he should, Barack Obama decides that an established reputation for national security and foreign policy expertise is a prerequisite for any potential running-mate, the question then becomes: Who passes the test?

Tim Kaine, eight years removed from a then-weak mayoralty and just 32 months removed from a lieutenant governor’s office, clearly doesn’t. (Maybe this is why, besides today’s two-weeks-too-late New York Times profile, the Kaine chatter has mostly vanished, especially after Russian tanks rolled into Georgia.) Neither does Kathleen Sebelius, who’s also seen as one of Obama’s personal favorites. If Obama were now leading John McCain by ten points, it’d probably be fair to assume he’d pick one of these governors.  read more »

Conventional wisdom can be and often is wrong, especially when it comes to running-mate speculation.

Maybe you can remember back to 1992, when just about every wise man and woman opined on the supposed importance of Bill Clinton, then a 45-year-old Southern governor, balancing his ticket with a gray-haired Northerner. Clinton, of course, ignored them and picked an even more youthful Tennessean named Al Gore, forming a visually powerful partnership that netted 370 electoral votes and made an utter mockery of conventional wisdom.

But there are times when, just like the proverbial broken clock, conventional wisdom actually gets it right. Case in point: the widely repeated view that Barack Obama needs to compensate for his perceived national security and foreign policy inexperience by selecting a running mate with reassuringly impeccable credentials in those areas.  read more »

This post has it right: No one saw this one coming. Senator Jim Webb, the former Republican and Reagan-era Navy secretary who has been touted as the perfect tough-guy complement to Barack Obama, unexpectedly and very publicly withdrew his name from VP consideration today.

The most immediate beneficiary of this could be Tim Kaine, the first-term governor of Virginia, which has emerged as perhaps the preeminent swing state of this cycle. Republicans have carried it in every election since 1964, but the Old Dominion's demographic evolution strongly favors the Democrats. Polls this year have shown Obama even with -- or even slightly ahead of -- John McCain.  read more »

Many of the candidates most frequently linked to Barack Obama’s running-mate search are presumably interested in the vice presidency for the leg up it provides for a future White House campaign. But some of the other names making the rounds suggest something quite different: the Dick Cheney model.

Mr. Cheney is only the second elected vice president since the end of World War II to pass on waging a campaign of his own for the top spot. And he’s the first to do so voluntarily: Spiro T. Agnew fully intended to run in 1976, but a no-contest plea in late 1973 to tax evasion and money laundering charges – related to bribes he took while serving as Maryland’s governor in the late '60s – took him out of the picture.  read more »

Nothing to see here, folks!

Michael Bloomberg arrived for dinner at the Oklahoma home of former Senator David Boren wearing red--the University of Oklahoma school's color--and bearing three boxes of Junior's cheesecake.

"I always bring a house warming gift when I visit someone and I can't think of anything more appropriate than three Junior's cheesecakes," Bloomberg told Boren, who greeted him in front of a mostly New York media crowd.

"We're really glad to have you," Boren said.  read more »