Position Available: KYSO Veep

NWMethodist

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Thursday May 08, 2008 · 7:28 PM PDT

2008/05/08 · 19:28

There's powerful pressure to yoke President Obama with a Vice President whose primary qualification is fitting the electoral calculus of the Same Old Politics.

Most of the names on the various lists we’ve seen, even at dKos, follow this conventional thinking: balance the ticket demographically or geographically, add some additional military credibility or foreign policy experience, unite the party, placate a disappointed also-ran and his/her fans, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The main motive for each of these considerations is the shortest of short-term political aims, lasting only a few days more than two months, from convention-end on August 28 to the morning after the election, November 5. The short-term aim: to balance the ticket in order to improve the likelihood of electing Barack Obama President. For the subsequent eight years, these matters of balance barely matter.

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