Why not make your prospective cabinet your campaign dream team?
Too much attention has been focused on Obama's choice of VP and the possible formation of a "dream team".
The "dream team" that matters won't be Obama and his vice-president. It will be Obama and his cabinet, which has already been likened, potentially, to a Lincolnian "team of rivals".
So why not make some selections relatively soon, and set those choices loose on the campaign trail? Why not make John Edwards, for example, your presumptive Attorney General, and let him campaign as a surrogate in that capacity, in those areas of the country where he can do the most good? Doing the same for other key cabinet positions with the likes of John Biden, Bill Richardson, and Hillary Clinton (to name just a few exciting possibilities) would do several things.
It would create a seriously credentialed tag-team that would catch McCain, and the Republicans, off guard, and keep them off balance for the rest of the campaign. McCain won't just be going up against Obama - he'll be taking on virtually the whole of a prospective Obama administration. Even if he can effectively counter one line of attack on any given day, several others would already be incoming, the combined force of their cogency and detail potentially overwhelming.
At the same time, much has been made about the unity and balance someone like Hillary Clinton could bring to the ticket. With four or five key surrogates with multiple appeal and a diversity of regional, ethnic and policy strengths, you take that unity and balance and expand it to seriously epic proportions.
Not least important is the way this "team of rivals" would effectively, and permanently, nullify the argument that Obama is 1) too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief and 2) too foreign or distant to certain key constituencies to be "electable". By making it clear that the Obama administration is going to be a team effort, peopled with respected, committed, energetic political veterans with divergent appeal (but with Obama clearly as team leader), you insure that the opposition can't define your effort by harping on the experience level and possible shortcomings or unfamiliarity of a single person. Such a bold, unconventional move would, if anything, reinforce Obama's growing reputation for fresh ideas and good judgment, and be entirely in the spirit of the campaign's inspiring meme of "yes, we can".
Finally, any criticism of the Obama campaign for being long on inspiration and short on specifics will be immediately blunted. The people who are going to implement the policies of an Obama presidency will be experts in their field. With each surrogate given a specific portfolio, the person with the greatest responsibility to implement a policy will be making the case for that policy in advance and in depth, freeing up Obama to be the leader, coordinator and main spokesman for team. Obama won't get bogged down in detail, while benefiting from the expertise and commitment each surrogate brings to the table.
For all I know, Senator Obama and his campaign staff may already be thinking along these lines. They have certainly proven their mettle this season. This suggestion, to my mind, would simply be a way of "force multiplying" their impressive efforts.