I started running pretty much daily open Obama v.p. speculation threads back on May 9. I may have been too repetitive, opinionated, stubborn, or whatever else, but I had a lot of fun and appreciated hearing everybody's viewpoints. Many times it was a very worthwhile conversation, I think.
There were three main elimination series of polls. The first generated Sen. Jim Webb (VA) as the winner, and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (KS) as the runner-up, by a slim margin. The second round produced Gen. (Ret.) Wesley Clark (AR), with Sebelius again the runner-up, and the result of the third was identical to the second. Of the three top names generated, I think all could have been solid and winning choices, along with my other three top choices, Fmr. Sen. Sam Nunn (GA), Sen. Russ Feingold (WI) and Gov. Tim Kaine (VA).
I could be said to have been correct in my analysis in generating the field for the third round of eliminations, only in that the eventual choice, Sen. Joe Biden (DE), was included among the 14 most likely choices, though he was not in my top four in my predictions or preference. So this diary is just me fulfilling my promise to eat crow here if I was wrong. And I was.
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I still feel that Gov. Mark Sanford (SC) is the likeliest v.p. nominee for the GOP, so take that with a grain of salt! Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) has probably seen her stock rise to the point that she'd by my first default prediction. As we've seen, I could certainly be wrong.
And I'll just wrap it up by saying that while I am not ecstatic over the final decision, it was not totally unexpected, and I hope that Obama and Biden take office in January. I'm sure you could find more of my analysis if you really want to look for it, but I hope you won't feel too bad if I don't elaborate here, in fact, I have nothing more to say about the v.p. pick (I said that a couple of times before in comments, but I swear I'm done now).
Barack Obama is my choice for president (and yours, too, I hope) because he's the best candidate, and that's what matters....
You may expect many more harmless snark and poetry diaries from me in the future.
Thanks,
Alex
Choose Our President 2008