OMG, not another Veep Diary!
Yeah, I know, nobody asked me, but...
... if I have to guess -- and like each of the 122,381 other Kossacks (approximate calculation) who have opined on this subject, I do have to guess -- I'm going with the same line of reasoning that Marc Ambinder mentioned yesterday in this post on his blog.
Ambinder relates some advice that John Kerry gave Obama about choosing a running mate:
Choose someone, he told Obama, that you trust completely. Don't expect the process to build trust. Don't choose someone with the expectation that you'll develop a trust.
No surprise there. It's no secret that Kerry was disappointed by John Edwards' performance as a running mate.
Ambinder's analysis of Kerry's advice makes sense:
In truth, there aren't too many potential VP picks who could be fairly said to have earned Barack Obama's trust. Not Hillary Clinton. Probably not Joe Biden. Not Evan Bayh. How could they? They've spent so little time with Obama, and none on neutral territory, when they have nothing to gain and thus no incentive to modify their behavior.
Michelle Obama, too, has counseled her husband about the imperative to trust the person he picks.
Assuming Obama agrees, it stands to reason that he won't choose someone he does not trust ALREADY.
He trusts Gov. Sebelius. He trusts Gov. Kaine. He trusts Sen. Jack Reed.
I'm going with this. Each of those three have their good points and bad points, but each of them has assets that outweigh any negatives that would be trotted out by McCain's handmaidens in the "traditional media." And, choosing someone you already know well enough to trust carries more than enough weight to overcome the few perceived negatives that any of these three would have.
Each of them would be a solid choice.