Monroe Anderson

Impalin Palin on a need to know basis

      

 This much we know for sure: Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's choice for his running mate for vice president, is a woman.

       There are a few other things we should know. "Sarah was raised amongst the tribe," reports Mudflats, a blog that prides itself in tiptoeing through the Muck of Alaskan Politics, "that believes creationism should be taught in our public schools, 
homosexuality is a sin, and life begins at conception.  She’s a gun-
toting, hang ‘em high conservative."

      So now we know why McCain picked her. We also know that McCain's maverick cred is about as valid as George W. Bush's curiosity cred. But here are some other things we need to know. For example, her own stepmother, Faye Palin, is not sure she's going to vote for her. Her foreign experience boils down to her being in charge of the Alaska's National Guard--with a grand total of 1,875 men and women.  And that we should, "Be afraid...Be very afraid," if McCain wins this election, according to the Angry African on the Loose blog because  "We are in serious danger if McCain wins this election. Serious danger."

    Angry African's blog posts a series of YouTube virals to make his point, while Mudflats runs it all down. Here's the beginning to the Alaskan-based blog.

“Is this a joke?”  That seemed to be the question du jour when my phone started ringing off the hook at 6:45am here in Alaska.  I mean, we’re sort of excited that our humble state has gotten some kind of national ‘nod’….but seriously?  Sarah Palin for Vice President?  Yes, she’s a popular governor.  Her all time high approval rating hovered around 90% at one point.  But bear in mind that the 90% approval rating came from one of the most conservative, and reddest-of-the-red states out there.  And that approval rating came before a series of events that have lead many Alaskans to question the governor’s once pristine image.

There is no doubt in my mind that many Alaskans are feeling pretty excited about this.  But we live in our own little bubble up here, and most of the attention we get is because of The Bridge to Nowhere, polar bears, the indictment of Ted Stevens, and the ongoing investigation and conviction of the string of legislators and oil executives who literally called themselves “The Corrupt Bastards Club”.

So seeing our governor out there in the national spotlight accepting the nomination for Vice Presidential candidate is just downright surreal.  Just months ago, when rumors surfaced that she was on the long version of the short list, she was questioned if she’d be interested in the position.  She said she couldn’t answer  “until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day. I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here….”

There is no doubt that Palin has fierce territorial loyalties.  When elected governor there was much concern because she came right out and said she would favor her own home town of Wasilla (where she was mayor) and its surrounding environs collectively known as “the Valley” while leading the state.  And it’s obvious from her statement that Alaska was on her mind when accepting the VP nod (see my emphasis above).

So what is it that we’re “trying to accomplish up here”?

• Palin is currently in the middle of a controversial gas pipeline project in Alaska.  She’s favored the ‘Trans Canada’ proposal that will run the pipeline through Canada, in effect shipping US jobs over the border.  Many Alaskans, including former governors, have favored the “All Alaska Route”.
• She is also sueing the federal government over listing the polar bears as a threatened species.  The science was even compelling enough to convince the Secretery of the Interior that the bears needed to be listed.  But acknowlegement of this issue, and the potential disruption to development on Alaska’s oil-rich north slope spurred Palin to attempt to stop the listing.
• Does she want to open ANWR?  Yes.  Every politician in Alaska wants to open ANWR.  It’s basically a requirement if you ever hope to get elected for anything.  Even Mark Begich, the progressive Democrat running against the indicted Senator and Alaskan institution Ted Stevens, is pro-drilling.  That’s the sea we swim in up here.  There are a few anti-drilling folks, but you have to look hard to find them, and work hard to have them admit it.

Will all this wash with voters in the ‘Lower 48′?  Time will tell.

 

 To read more of what Mudflats reports, click here.

    To see all of what Angry African on the Loose posts, click here.

Obama's Democratic party nomination brings instant change

   

      It took no time for things to change back home in the Windy City after Barack Obama was nominated in the Mile High City Thursday night by the Democratic party to be its candidate for president.

      I got an email from my friend, Sergio Mims, who lives in the same Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago as Obama. Here's what he had to report:

Just yesterday I walked by Obama's house on 51st and Greenwood two blocks from me and there wasn't much going on expect for the usual black Secret Service mini-van parked outside.

 

I passed by it today just 20 minutes ago and the street is now blocked off with those big concrete barriers to prevent cars from driving by, fences and signs warning Don't Enter. Now the only people allowed through now are people who live on the block.

 

Things change in a hurry but at least I live on the safest neighborhood in the city now.

 

 

S

     Now that's what I call change you can believe in.

History Happens in Denver

    On the 53rd anniversary of the murder of Emmitt Till, the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at the Washington Mall and 72 years after the first African Americans attended a Democratic national convention, history happened.
     Barack Obama became the first African American to accept the Democratic Party nomination for the president of the United States. His acceptance came before 84 ,000 faithful in a stadium where a contact sport stirs men's blood year in and year out.
     His acceptance speech was inspirational and spirited. Republicans John McCain and George W. Bush were taken to task for failures too many to list, but many were ticked off, and too painful to ignore. His acceptance speech offered hope framed by real solutions to real problems. His acceptance speech was a rapid round of fire power in the escalating battle for the White House.
  November 5, 2008 may be the time the forces for good won.
     It would be a great change and a greater leap forward for America.

Before Obama's speech: Great expectations

     The view from the sports press box at Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos, is close to panoramic.  Thirty-one other bloggers are perched up here with me, and like me, waiting for nightfall and the dawn of Barack Obama’s historic face-off with John McCain.
     In less than 90 minutes, the acceptance speech begins. Obama’s got some big shoes to fill: His own.
    High expectations in the Mile High City and beyond, from sea to shining sea and around the planet people are awaiting a spellbinder. He’s got to equal or surpass his Philadelphia speech on race last March. He’s got to match or outdo his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.
    It doesn’t stop there. Obama’s speech is exactly 45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”--aka "the Broken Promise" speech on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
   Anything less in substance and style than these three monumental speeches could easily be labeled as a dud by the MSM and his Republican detractors. Stay tuned, we’ll hear soon.
   In the meantime, here’s Dr. King’s classic.

Democrats on the love vote

   

       At least one of Chris Matthew's often repeated political quips is going to have to be changed.  It goes like this: Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.

       Well, during the first three days of this four-day convention here, in Denver, I’ve watched Democrats in love, fall in line.
      It was some sight to behold. Michelle Obama was stunning in appearance and speech on Monday. The next night, Hillary Clinton strongly endorsed Obama and chiefly commanded her troops to not be the enemy within and prepare for the battle begun.         Tonight Bill Clinton seconded that emotion.
       And, just like that, all those worries about a floor fight or a brokered convention vanished. It was all verbal hugs and kisses. Goo-goo ayes and acclamations. Obama and Biden are a team and the Clintons have given their blessings.
       It looks like bad news for the Republicans. For the past week or so they’ve been courting Hillary’ disenchanted and disillusioned followers, hoping to woo them into a temporary political tryst. Republican operatives played on the tensions between the Obama and Clinton camps. They clucked about possible swipes Hillary had made and help spread rumors that Bill would be a party unfaithful.
    No such luck and the GOP’s sweet nothings, for the most part, seem to be falling on deaf ears.  And while there are still are a small percentage of Hillites ready for the taking, I don’t think there’s enough to spoil the Democrat’s new union. We'll see.
    But no doubt about it, this has been Obama’s night. Tomorrow will be his day. Ain’t love Grand, Old Party?

("A Love Puzzle" by Joyce Owens is shown above. (30" x 40" acrylic & collage on canvas.)

Outside the DNC, a game of cops and anarchists

   

    I wasn’t going to talk to the two young cops hanging out in front of Denver’s Convention Center, just waiting for trouble to break out. But Tracey Barnett wanted to pop off a few shots of them all dressed up in their police paraphernalia.
    Tracey is a freelance journalist from New Zealand. We just met an hour before in the Specialty Media Lounge where we talked about her website, my blog, our spouses, our children and, of course, Barack Obama and politics. We were on our way to catch the shuttle to Pepsi Center when the Denver cops caught her eye. After Tracey finished clicking, I couldn’t help but start shooting off a few questions.
    I wanted to know if they knew how many and who the protesters were. Since I was hanging out in the convention center and in the Pepsi Center with the delegates, I had no idea what was happening on the streets. He rattled off a few of the groups, Recreate 68, Code Pink and the anarchists. 
   Not a word about the right-to-lifers.  I thought they’d at least get honorable mention. Yesterday morning I’d attended the African American Caucus where a young white man disrupted the meeting by yelling out that Barack Obama equaled genocide.  Before he could finish spewing out his rehearsed lines, he was being whisked away by a couple of law officers.  "Obama" had already drowned his words out "Obama! Obama! Obama!" chants from the thousand or so DNC delegates seated in the auditorium. About 10 minutes later, another young white man in a different part of the crowd jumped up, attempting to repeat the same performance. He got the same treatment.
    So, I thought, the anti-choice crowd was not making its mark.  “It’s the anarchists,” one of the two young officers said, casually charging that they had been throwing plastic bags filled with excrement at him and others among Denver’s finest.

    “Anarchists? I thought they had played out long ago,” I said.
    “They’re trying to make a comeback. They say they want anarchy but they’re trying to organize others. That makes no sense to me.”
    I had to nod in agreement. “How many were there?”
    “Maybe 500 or 600.”
    Tracey had stopped her picture taking and was now in a questioning mode. She had them showing off their new tech weapons. One cop had a grenade launcher. He showed us the tear-gass filled plastic bombs it shot off. The other had an orange-handled rifle that shot rubber bullets. Up close, they both almost looked like toys.
    Both types of weapons had been put to use just about the time Michelle Obama was speaking to the nation. That’s when the anarchists and the Denver police were battling downtown while virtually all of the 15,000 journalists here to cover the convention were inside the Pepsi Center listening to Michelle’s heart-felt, heart-warming speech about an American family, its past and the nation’s future.
    Outside, the anarchists didn’t fare as well. If they had planned their protest better, they would have come with better police protection and would have picked a better time to call for no law and disorder.

(Top photo is one of the pictures Tracey Barnett shot. Special thanks to Rhonda Matthews for the photo of the group of Denver police)

Hoping Denver 2008 won't be Chicago 1968

   

    I have the dubious distinction of being one of the first journalists to be beaten by the Chicago police in 1968.
    My own personal cop clubbing came in a different era in a different city at a different Democratic National Convention. It was exactly 40 years ago Sunday night in the initial stage of what would  later be described as a “police riot.”
    The whole world was watching.
    Richard J. Daley, Chicago’s first mayor-for-life and father to the second one, was hell-bent on making sure that his city was show-cased as the world class city he knew it to be.
    No unwashed, longhaired, commie sympathizing hippies were going to disrupt his party’s party in his city. No how. No way.
    So when 11 p.m. rolled around, on August 25, 1968, more than 6,000 riot-gear laden cops marched into Chicago’s Lincoln Park to make sure that the less than 5,000 protesters gathered there understood that the welcome mat was about to be rolled up and carted away. “The park closes at 11 p.m.,” an authoritative voice announced through a bullhorn.  The anti-war demonstrators were ordered to clear out.
    No sooner than the announcement was made, I saw in the distance an unidentified sailing object, highlighted by the lights from the TV cameras, launched from within the ranks, over the demonstrators into the ranks of the Chicago police. It would be months later before we’d learn that the bottle had been thrown by an undercover cop acting as an agent provocateur. But right then, right there, all we knew was that all hell was breaking loose. The riot-helmeted blue mass moved toward the long-haired mass.  Soon I saw one person after the next staggering south on Clark Street, with blood and tear-stained faces. 
    For me, an Indiana University college student who was interning in Newsweek's Chicago bureau, this was TV drama in the flesh. John Culhane, the Newsweek correspondent who was showing me the ropes, and I ran against the crowd to get a first-hand look at the action.
    We didn’t get far. 

    "The police had formed a club-swinging gauntlet along the curb. Every four or five feet there was a billy club wielding cop wailing away. We were beaten from one cop to the next to the next."

    After advancing a little more than 100 feet, we ran into reality.  The Chicago cops were beating down anybody and everybody not dressed in a blue police uniform.
    John and I took refuge in the tiny, fenced-in yard that fronted the Mt. Hermon Baptist Church, thinking we had found a sanctuary. Two policemen stood at the gate to the yard. “Come out of there, mother------s,” one yelled, after lifting the plastic face shield on his riot helmet to make sure his voice was plain and clear.
    At that point, it was obvious that the DNC-issued press credentials dangling around our necks were no protection. As we obeyed the police order, shuffling through the gate, it was just as obvious that the Newsweek-issued riots helmets we wore would offer just a little protection.  The blows rang our bells but drew no blood. We were hit and hit again until we were knocked into the stream of screaming and cursing civilians stumbling south on Clark Street. The police had formed a club-swinging gauntlet along the curb. Every four or five feet there was a billy club wielding cop wailing away. We were beaten from one cop to the next to the next.
    I had two thoughts simultaneously running through my head. One was the sense of fear and hopelessness knowing that the ones who had the power to protect  were out to do harm. The other was to find some other body to dart behind so that it might absorb the next blow rather than mine.
    As suddenly as the beating started, it was over for John and me. We had been clubbed to the intersection of LaSalle and Clark where we could flee with others in the bruised and bloodied crowd.
    When we got back to Newsweek’s makeshift headquarters, we anxiously reported our painful ordeal to our editors. They thought we had brought it on ourselves. We were taken off the streets and confined to answering the phones on Monday night. Then came other reports of other journalists who had been discouraged by the brute force of the CPD from covering the street demonstrators.  Our editors immediately understood it wasn’t us, it was them: The police were out to beat the press.

   

    [The top photo is across from the Conrad Hilton in Grant Park. I'm the young reporter in the riot helmet with Reporter's Notepad in hand. Above is a photograph of Newsweek's journalists beaten by the Chicago police. John Culhane is the white reporter with the mustache. I'm standing on the right, next to him.]

    For the next three days and three nights, I was back on the streets, witnessing history unfold. Experiencing it too. I was tear-gassed. I stood face-to-face with National guardsmen, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their rifles in hand. I wiped my watering eyes after tear-gas shells were launched to disperse demonstrators. I furiously scribbled in my Reporter’s Notebook and I watched as more protesters and press landed on the wrong end of a policeman’s nightstick. By the time Hubert Humphrey delivered his acceptance speech on Thursday night, 700 civilians and 83 police were injured. Thirty-two newsmen had to receive medical attention. Some 653 American citizens had been arrested.
    America and the Democratic Party were not ever the same. So much law and so little order shoved the nation to the right. And just two Democrats, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, have been elected in the four decades following the billy club bash.
    Last night, on the eve of the Denver convention there were a few hundred protesters on the streets, but, unlike Chicago 1968, there was no disorder among those charged with enforcing the law. Lessons were learned and times have changed.
    This convention, 40 years later, is going to be another historic one. But rather than history being made on the streets, this time it will be made inside the convention hall.
   I was a witness to the action outside back then, I’m a witness on the inside this week.
    Throughout this convention, I’ll share with you what I see.   

Obama does some housekeeping for McCain

 

   

    John McCain, the regular Joe, has been so busy keeping count on how many ways he can label Barack Obama an elitist that he forgot to keep up with the Jones on how much money makes you rich. Saturday, during the Saddleback presidential forum, he guessed that if you made $5 million you're rich--and thing less and you solidly middle class.
    Yesterday, McCain--the son of a four-star U.S. Navy Admiral and the grandson of a four-star U.S. Navy Admiral--let it slip that it might be a while before he has to worry about being homeless. When asked by a reporter about how many homes he owned, McCain answered: "I think - I'll have my staff get to you."

    With a networth of $40 million, you can understand why the presumptive Republican presidential nominee might not keep close tabs on just where the poverty line is drawn. So that other presidential candidate, Obama-the-elitist had to tell McCain just how many homes he and his wife, Cindy, the uber-rich heiress own--as few as seven or as many as nine.

Burge should make Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics tortuous

    Chicago is such a serious contender for the 2016 Olympics that there were reports of city officials working on a tentative schedule for events. But one civil rights group here in the Windy City says not so fast. Black People Against Police Brutality is out to hold the city's Olympic bid hostage until justice is done. The group wants Jon Graham Burge, Chicago's torture cop, prosecuted for the dirty work he did over a 20-year period. Here's a commentary I wrote for The Huffingtonpost.com about injustice in the Second City.

Monroe Anderson
Jon Burge, The Olympics and Torture in Chicago

Richard M. Daley, Chicago's Mayor-for-Life, was duty bound to be in Beijing for the opening ceremony to the Summer Olympics: He had some elbow rubbing and glad-handing to do.

Chicago is an international finalist to be the host city for the 2016 Olympics so the face time and a check on Beijing's newly-minted public transit system, before being awed by China's spectacular coming out party, was a must for the Second City's mayor. The word is that Chicago may own the inside track with the International Olympic Committee's 115 voting members against the three other competing cities--Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid.

That may not continue to be the case, especially if the Black People Against Police Torture gets its way. In a quixotic quest for justice, the civil rights group is out to expose America's third-largest city as, charges Atty. Standish Willis, "the torture capital of the world."

Since the last millennium, Willis and other Chicago civil rights attorneys and activists have been seeking to get a now-retired police commander, Jon Graham Burge, held responsible for hideous crimes he committed, that have been hidden behind a gray-flannel and blue wall of silence.
Cmdr. Burge and his midnight crew at the city's Area 2 police station tortured more than 137 African American men over a two-decade span. In many cases, Burge and his medieval sect of detectives tortured the old-fashioned way, using nightsticks, flashlights, black jacks and telephone books. At other times they went above and beyond the call of cruelty by hand cranking a telephone box that generated an electrical current, then putting it to the genitals and rectums of the black suspects they were interrogating. Other cruel and unusual practices by Burge's "A Team" included cattle prods to the bodies and plastic bags placed over the heads.

Chicago's torture cop is old news that Willis and his group are attempting to make current again. Accusations that Lt. Burge and officers under him were torturing prisoners into confessions have been an open secret for nearly three decades throughout much of the city and county's criminal justice system. The rumors ran rampant in the early 1980s when Mayor Daley was the Cook County state's attorney.

Two years ago, the Report of the Special State's Attorney was released, dashing any doubts that the rumors were unmerited. Special Prosecutor Edward Egan, who led the four-year, $6.2 million investigation, found that in the '70s and '80s former Cmdr. Burge and his men tortured suspects into making confessions.

Fired fifteen years ago, Burge is livin la vida loca in Florida, still drawing his pension of $3,403.71 a month. In the meantime, 24 black men who were set up by Burge and his subordinates are still doing hard time. The report also claimed that the statute of limitations has expired, making it too late to file charges against the bad cops.

Willis and the other civil rights attorneys have argued that since there was an ongoing cover-up on the Burge tortures, both in the Chicago police department and in the Cook County Court system during and for years afterwards, that the statutes of limitations don't apply. Willis, the Chicago chairman of the National Council of Black Lawyers, has also presented his case on police torture in the U.S. before the U.N.'s Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination Conference in Geneva, Switzerland earlier this year.

Shortly after the Egan report, Willis and Patricia Hill, president of the African American Police League, founded the Black People Against Police Torture they contacted the OIC, attempting to get it to disqualify Chicago as a host city. Nearly two years later, Willis and his group are still awaiting an answer.

So this Thursday night Black People Against Police Torture will meet again to review its efforts to hold the Summer Olympics hostage until the unjustly convicted men are given a retrial and the torturers are put on trial.

Considering the OIC's indifference to Beijing's support of the genocidal Darfur government and its human rights violations in Tibet and at home, my guess is that Willis and his group have a Chinaman's chance of appealing to its 115 members' sense of social justice and civil rights.

            

   

Civil Rights

 

           

VEEP creep

    

    Barack Obama may name his running mate any day now. Yesterday his campaign launched an online "Barack's VP: Be the First to Know" initiative allowing supporters to sign up to get an email or text message as soon as the decision is made.
    Although conventional wisdom has the Obama and McCain campaigns waiting for a couple of weeks until the Olympics are over, that may or may not happen.
    The candidate of change, using his cyberspace army, may announce next week once he returns from his Hawaii vacation. The GOP's erstwhile maverick may pick an opportune time to derail the next surge of the Obama media juggernaut.  So, while we know the running mate choices are creeping up on us, we wait to see when they'll be sprung.
   Factoring in the guessing game, EbonyJet.com decided to run its Vice President Fantasy Draft today, featuring revised choices by some of us who had chosen earlier. My June 2 choice of Colin Powell has been jettisoned, reduced to a real world selection.     You can check out my choice, along with those of Eric Easter and Brian Gilmore, below or by going to Ebonyjet.com where there's are other opinions on other things.

RETHINK: The VP Fantasy Draft

August 12, 2008

Months ago when Monroe Anderson, Brian Gilmore and I did our Fantasy Cabinet Picks for Barack Obama, we always knew that we’d have to make an adjustment once the dust settled a bit. And then, maybe not.

Now that we’re only days away from a final decision of Obama’s choice for VP, we decided to see, knowing what we know now, how committed we are to the choices we made in May.

Eric Easter:
My initial pick was Virginia Senator Jim Webb, with the caveat that I actually preferred former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, but thought his current run for Senate might negate consideration.

Since then, Jim Webb has taken himself out of the running and the buzz has been around current Virginia Governor Tim Kaine.  So, right state but wrong choices? I’m not so sure.

I like Tim Kaine, he’s a nice, decent sort of fellow and a popular governor, but let’s get the story straight – Tim Kaine won largely on the coattails of Mark Warner. Prior to Warner’s win, Virgina was solidly Republican. The strategy and groundwork it took to turn a red state blue was done by Warner and it’s that kind of campaigning skill that Obama needs.

I still think Mark Warner is far and away the best partner for Obama, emphasis on “partner.” If Obama is going to win, he’s going to do it mostly on his own accord, though Warner brings a lock on Virginia and a spillover effect into West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and North Carolina. Certainly Obama has to win, but really it’s his race to lose. I’m much more concerned with who can help him govern. Again, Mark Warner is the best choice, having been a hands-on governor known for winning broad Republican support and balancing an extremely complicated state budget,

To make this happen, the Democratic Party will have to find a replacement for Warner in the Senate race, and Warner will have to make peace with the possibility that a loss as VP also loses him the opportunity to grab the almost guaranteed Senate seat he’s been coveting for a decade. On the other hand, the fact that Warner already has a campaign and fundraising organization makes him even more attractive.

I know, I know, what about Joe Biden? Call me crazy but two senators on one ticket just scares me. It’s too top-heavy and the job of senator is too far divorced from the people on the ground. Such a pick would only help the Republicans make the case that the Democrats are running an elitist campaign.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve both worked for and donated money to past Warner campaigns. But this is an objective pick, which is more than I can say for a lot of inside –the- Beltway types calling for Warner because they know they’ll have access to his inner circle.

VP Pick: Mark Warner

Monroe, Brian - your turn.

Brian Gilmore:
Okay, Richard Gephart was way off as VP. At the time, I was thinking Missouri, but that is overblown now because there are other states in play besides Missouri, and Missouri might have been in play even though Gephart is not on the ticket. Not to mention the fact that he has been way off the world stage for too long.

So here are a few theories I am stuck with on how Obama will pick his guy.

The Cokie Roberts Choice:

ABC News commentator Cokie Roberts says he has to pick a dull white guy. This might mean Tim Kaine. Kaine is not exactly exciting and he has another plus working for him – he’s from Virginia. Virginia is the slam dunk state for Barack Obama. If he wins, Virginia, McCain is likely in trouble.

The Kennedy Choice

Obama, of course, admires John F. Kennedy. JFK is famous for picking Lyndon Johnson who delivered Texas for Kennedy and the election. This again might point to people like Tim Kaine of Virginia or another high profile Virginia politician like Jim Webb. Webb’s military background makes him a great, though controversial choice. Ted Strickland of Ohio would fall into this category as would Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.

The Godfather Choice

Don Corleone famously told his son, Michael in the film, “The Godfather,” to keep your friends close, your enemies, closer. It is great advice. Two words then: Hillary Clinton.

Who he will choose:

Barack Obama is a man of his word, most of the time. He says geography doesn’t matter; it is leadership. This eliminates the Kennedy choice. Tim Kaine is a dull white guy but probably too dull. Hillary Clinton is not a dull white guy; she is smart, clever, tough, but a sort of dull white woman despite her high profile and her skills as a politician. Ed Rendell could be the choice here but he is missing something that ties him to Washington, makes him look like an international player.

Thus, Obama will pick Joe Biden of Delaware because Biden is ready to lead, has excellent credentials and is dull enough that Obama won’t be overshadowed.

VP Pick: Joe Biden

Monroe Anderson:
A couple of months ago, when I picked my fantasy draft for President Obama, the operative word for me was, well, fantasy.  Keeping that in mind, my choice for vice president was Colin Powell.  I argued that the retired four-star general would cancel out John McCain’s military advantage. And that as a former presidential cabinet member for both Papa and Junior Bush, Powell was so popular among Republicans, independents and Reagan Democrats that many thought him a more viable candidate in 2000 than George W. I even offered an off-hand—but serious—that “for the nut jobs out there that might be planning an assassination attempt of the nation’s first African American Chief Executive, they’d be forced to think twice.”
 
But, I knew then as I know now that the regular Democrats aren’t about to let a Republican get that job in the name of change. And, of course, that regular white Americans, Democrat or Republican, weren’t about to vote for a black president and black vice-president—that would be way too much change.

So this time, I’m for real: It won’t be John Edwards.

Seriously, the current short list of names most mentioned for Obama’s running mate are Virginia’s Tim Kaine, Delaware’s Joe Biden and Indiana’s Evan Bayh.
   
Just two weeks ago, the Washington insiders’ whisper mill had Kaine as the one to beat. Minnesota-born, it was duly-noted that Kaine could help deliver red state Virginia, a feat that might make the difference between Obama being the nation’s first black president or the guy who did way better than the reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  Kaine is said to be very compatible with Obama because they both have Kansas roots and they both have Harvard law degrees to decorate the appropriate wall. Kaine was also the first governor outside of Illinois to back Obama.
   
They aren’t whispering as much as they were last month. My suspicion is because Kaine may be too easy a target for the right-wing fear and smear machine. For one thing, the one-term governor hasn’t governed his state all that well. For another, it’s his name.
   
There’s a double-digit number of Americans who refuse to believe that Obama’s not a Muslim. An Obama-Kaine ticket would compound the problem with the wing-nut bloggers pointing out that Kaine is not able and that Barack Obama’s middle name is still Hussein.
 
Biden, on the other hand, shouldn’t be so easily dismissed.  He would instantaneously give the ticket foreign policy cred and deflect some of the greenhorn thrust the McCain camp is pushing out there. BUT, Biden, who has been in the senate longer than a bunch of Obama’s most ardent supporters have been alive, doesn’t exactly represent change. AND, Biden is known for sudden outbreaks of foot-in-mouth disease: Remember the Delaware senator’s quote earlier this year that in Obama as a presidential candidate “you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”?
   
So Bayh is my choice.  A former governor, the two-term senator can help deliver his very red state because he’s popular with both Democrat and Republican Hoosiers. As a former Hillary Clinton supporter, he may also help pacify some of the New York senator’s still disaffected backers. And as a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, he brings something to the foreign affairs table.
   
Bayh’s drawback is that he is so milquetoast that few voters may notice he’s in the game and that he may be unwilling—or unable—to trash talk while throwing some elbows towards Team McCain.
   
That may be why Bodog, the online gambling site, has 3/2 odds for both Bayh and Kaine. The next closest choice is Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius whose odds are 8/1.

VP Pick: Evan Bayh