I can't say that I know a great deal about Mary Landrieu. But from what I do know of her, she'd seem to be a serious contender for the VP slot, especially if the nominee is a northerner like Dean. Here's why:
- She's a southern Democrat.
- She took on and beat the Bush machine.
- She is a Washington insider to complement someone like Dean.
- She's pretty centrist, but is progressive at heart with a decent voting record on most issues (partial birth abortion is a major exception - but she's certainly pro-choice, and truth is, several progressives broke sides on that one).
- She's a woman, which I believe will help a lot (this is not 1984 anymore, and she's a southern centrist).
- She's got a Dem governor (thank you Louisiana!) to select her successor.
- She just won re-election so she won't have to deal with making a decision to run for two offices at once or not.
- She does well with the black community (essential in Louisiana!)
- As far as I can tell, she does well with more religious communities (can help someone like Dean broaden his comfort range and experience here).
- While Bush won Louisiana by 8 percentage points in 2000, it's much more fond of Dems than most Southern states and has certainly moved more Dem since 2000. I believe she could help us carry this state and its 9 electoral votes, though I'm sure not everyone would agree.
So here's my question... those of you who know more about her - how does she do as a speaker? Can she sit a debate with Dick Cheney? Does she have known or likely skeletons? Can you see her boosting a Dem ticket as the VP?
Of course there may be other excellent choices, like Bill Richardson, but I'm just floating this one out there to get some feedback. Feel free to compare her to Richardson if you have a good sense of them both; seems to me they'd carry different strengths in terms of experience and expertise, as well as community appeal.
Oh and, why am I even thinking VP now? Because Dem campaigns now seem to listen to what the Blogs tell them and it might be helpful for us to think intelligently about this now. So far, people here are mostly backing current contenders for the nomination as VP choices (Dean/Clark! Kerry/Edwards! etc.) which suggests to me we're looking at a pretty limited range of people.