{"id":476,"date":"2008-05-27T09:31:56","date_gmt":"2008-05-27T14:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=476"},"modified":"2008-05-27T10:36:12","modified_gmt":"2008-05-27T15:36:12","slug":"veepstakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=476","title":{"rendered":"Veepstakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marc Ambinder has his lists of <a href=\"http:\/\/marcambinder.theatlantic.com\/archives\/2008\/05\/ambinder_veepstakes_lists.php\">potential VP picks<\/a>.  Here are mine:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Obama<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Senator Jim Webb (Virginia)<br \/>\nThe only choice that makes sense.  Appeals to the Appalachian demographic that has been escaping him; solidifies his national security and military credentials; makes Virginia a swing state; his Reagan administration background emphasizes how far astray Bush has led the country.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>McCain<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Governor Charlie Crist (Florida)<br \/>\nMy take on McCain&#8217;s campaign this past year is that he is desperate to win, and is willing to compromise almost anything in order to do so.  The one exception is his position on what he sees to be the defining issue of our time: Islamist extremism.  He believes this single issue overrides all other options.  McCain is already focusing on Florida and trying to undermine Obama in the Jewish community there.  Picking the popular governor would almost guarantee him this perennial swing state.  <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">Also an important factor: picking Crist would protect his right flank and placate social conservatives.<\/span> Apparently, I&#8217;m a dumbass and got my facts wrong here.\u00a0 Crist is a social conservative, but an &#8220;uncomfortable&#8221; one, having campaign as pro-choice before he became pro-life.\u00a0 Another major negative: he, like McCain, is really old.<\/li>\n<li>Governor Mitt Romney (Massachusetts)<br \/>\nA pick who would placate movement conservatives, bring him a substantial fundraiser, and someone who can speak convincingly on the economy.  By picking Romney, McCain is indicating that he is giving his campaign over to the &#8220;movement.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Senator Joe Lieberman (Connecticut)<br \/>\nRisking the alienation of social conservatives, the Lieberman choice would be bold and would put McCain in the best spot to win the presidency.  He would be demonstrating that his presidency would be about the War Against Terrorism as well as his bipartisan <em>bona fides<\/em>.  The boldest move, but also the one McCain would be under enormous pressure not to make.  If McCain really believes this election should be about Iraq and terrorism, and if he wants to win on these issues, he should pick Lieberman.  He won&#8217;t however.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marc Ambinder has his lists of potential VP picks. Here are mine: Obama Senator Jim Webb (Virginia) The only choice that makes sense. Appeals to the Appalachian demographic that has been escaping him; solidifies his national security and military credentials; makes Virginia a swing state; his Reagan administration background emphasizes how far astray Bush has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,45,6,4],"tags":[326,314,296,178,325],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-2008","category-mccain","category-obama","category-politics","tag-charlie-crist","tag-jim-webb","tag-joe-lieberman","tag-marc-ambinder","tag-mitt-romney"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-7G","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}