America's Next Vice President

The media have apparently come to the conclusion that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for president with one month left in the primary campaign.  Editors at the national publications and executives at the cable news networks are no doubt disappointed at the imminent end of the primary battle (whether it is this week, May 20, or June 4) and the expanded audience that comes with it.

The Obama campaign can provide these outlets with a new way to capture the public's attention.  A way that pre-empts the traditional lull between the wrapping up of the primaries and the convention.

The Obama campaign should make the summer an exercise in political reality television with a broad casting call for the Vice Presidency.

This summer programming should not be a completely open casting call.  Vetting of contenders ought to limit the number of viable choices down to a manageable number, perhaps eight to ten.  Those candidates would then spend the summer up to early August on the campaign trail making the strongest case possible for why Barack Obama should be president.  Each contender could coordinate message with the Obama campaign and then go off onto the trail with his or her personal spin on the campaign's talking points.  

The result would be a campaign with many surrogates fanning across the nation, surrogates that the media would actively follow to wonder whether each one was America's next Vice President.  Candy Crowley and Nora O'Donnell could continue to follow the several possible #2s diners and county fairs in places like Altoona, PA and Terre Haute, IN.  The voters there would get energized advocates for the Obama campaign coming to town, and the media would get some intrigue to cover.  Imagine CNN's Ballot Bowl working with the following scenario.

It's July 6.  Reporters are spread across the nation seeing the next potential Vice President.

On tonight's program:
Katherine Sibelius is on a flight from Topeka to Columbus, Ohio, where she will talk about solutions to the mortgage crisis.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is manning a voter registration table at the state fair in Richmond.  Evan Bayh is doing the same thing at a county fair in Terre Haute, Indiana.

John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth are leading a town hall in Athens, Ohio, ridiculing John McCain's health care plan as one that will not insure seriously ill Americans.

Wes Clark is in Tyler, Texas talking about how the Iraq War needs to end and focusing on improvements in the VA.

Bill Richardson is in Tuscon, Arizona discussing the end of the war as well.

Also talking about the war, Joe Biden is holding a town hall in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Russ Feingold is giving a speech in Beloit, Wisconsin savaging John McCain's support of the Patriot Act.

Chris Dodd is in a town hall in Concord, New Hampshire, discussing the Obama campaign's restoration of habeas corpus.

Hillary Clinton is talking to customers in a diner in Doylestown, Pennsylvania about health care costs.  Meanwhile, her husband Bill is on a bus tour across rural Arkansas talking about how he believes in the audacity of hope.

You get the idea.  These politicians (and others I have not mentioned) would talk about the issues they are already talking about, framed so that they would be part of the Democratic nominee's platform.  Yet because of the intrigue over whether any single one would become the next Vice President, all would get media coverage as they advocate on behalf of the Obama-??? ticket.

Instead of getting one high-profile surrogate for the summer campaign by selecting a running mate in June or July, Obama would have several fanning out across all 50 states, expanding the effective reach of the campaign without exhausting any one person.  He could also see how effective and energetic these surrogates are at making his case.  The race for the vice presidency would also create a media narrative of a Democratic party unified towards a common goal -- reclaiming the White House.  The Clintons would be shown out on the stump tireless advocating for a candidate they had been fighting for months as Wolf Blitzer and Tim Russert speculate whether Hillary would be on the ticket.  Chris Dodd and Joe Biden would get regular appearances on Face the Nation and This Week as the shows speculate whether either man might be the nominee.

Two weeks or so before the convention, Barack Obama could make his selection public (a selection that of course involves vetting beyond simply seeing how good the candidates are on the stump, extending to who he feels comfortable having on the ticket), followed by a joint tour across the nation to Denver.  All of the putative VP candidates would get speaking slots at the convention, and perhaps more of them would get airtime on TV due to the coverage of them over the previous few weeks on the trail.

The ticket could then campaign on through the fall, and perhaps (just perhaps) the media might give a little more oxygen to the remaining surrogates as they discuss the importance of a Democrat in the White House on specific issues.  The party is seen as unified, the surrogates get more coverage, Obama gets a lot of high-profile people out on the trail for him in every corner of the nation, and the media gets some kind of horse race to pull them through the dog days of summer with increased audiences and ad revenue.

I can think of worse summer programming.