Potential VEEP consideration?:

[gateley]

mckeown1128 has been running VP polls.

bain_sidhe posted:

Why do you keep leaving out Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy?

Virgina resident. First 3-star General of the Army. Military Intelligence.

Bio (from the article below): Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, U.S. Army (Ret.), was the first woman to achieve the rank of three-star general in the U.S. Army. She served as the senior intelligence officer for U.S. Forces Command and as deputy commanding general for the Army Intelligence Center and School, and completed her Army career as the deputy chief of staff for intelligence. She is a member of the board of the American Security Project.

Read her article on "No Torture, No Exceptions" here:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0801.kennedy.html


After reading her article and bain-sidhe's posts, I'm thinking.....hmmm. Sounds pretty good to me.


EDIT to fix link

[babylonsister]

1. I've heard/read military don't often make good political partners. I

think the example given was Perot and James Stockdale. Doesn't mean anything necessarily, but something to consider.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale

[gateley]

2. Thanks for the link, babylonsister.

I didn't know Stockdale was such a good guy -- telling the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin.

I'm wondering if it wasn't so much that Stockdale was military, as much as he really wasn't able to become a political player. :shrug:

[babylonsister]

3. Or maybe it takes some unknown quality to become a

political player most military don't possess. I honestly don't know. But Stockdale didn't help Perot at all, so maybe many think it's not a risk worth taking. Then again, Webb was in the military, and he seems to be doing fine. :shrug:

[gateley]

4. Hagel, too. Not to mention McCain (barf).

[TheDoorbellRang]

9. Stockdale's problem wasn't his military creds, which were stellar

I remember seeing the vice presidential debate that year, and he really did come off as disoriented. Here's what your wikipedia link said about that debate:

Stockdale infamously opened the debate by saying, "Who am I? Why am I here?" Initially, the rhetorical questions drew applause from the audience <5>, seeming to be a good-natured acknowledgment of his relatively unknown status and lack of traditional qualifications. However, his unfocused style for the rest of the debate (including asking the moderator to repeat one question because he didn't have his hearing aid turned on) made him appear confused and almost disoriented.

Now, wikipedia goes on to say that it was media spin, but OTOH Stockdale died of Altzheimer's in 2005. Like McCain, Stockdale was a POW in Viet Nam. Interesting, because I really do think McCain is having some signs of senility, too.

[jillan]

5. gateley - I think that

YOU should be veep!!


:)

[gateley]

6. Only if Biden gets elected President!!

:hi:

[jillan]

7. Well in that case - - -

I'd have to challenge you to a duel.

[bain_sidhe]

8. Oh! I'm famous... or something...

I've been following Kennedy for years, and I think she has more political skills than most military. I'm not sure how interested she is in politics, but she publicly mulled running for a Senate seat (I think the one that Dole ended up in) before deciding not to.

I first heard of her in 2000, when I was running About.com's "Women's Issues" site. She had spoken out publicly about sexual harassment she'd received from a fellow officer, and I used it as the hook for an article about sexism in the military. Lt. Gen. Kennedy herself is a team player, and at the time was content to handle it through "channels" - but then the guy was being considered for a promotion that would have put him in charge of investigating incidents of sexual harassment.

Anyway, there's a lot more to the article than just that, so I won't bore you with it. If you want to read it, it's here:

http://www.webfaerie.com/content/WI_Archive/library/weekly/aa040500a.htm

(My "articles" from About.com were taken down when a new women's issues guide was hired, but I preserved them in an archive, although most of the outside links don't work anymore)

Anyway, one of mckeown1128's polls was specifically about women, so I thought of her. I'd LOVE to have a woman on the ticket, and I'd rather it wasn't Hillary, so she seemed a good choice, to me. She's been an advocate for women soldiers, and I think her position in Army Intelligence is a big plus too.

There's a good bio of her on the Huffington Post, as well, here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lt-gen-claudia-kennedy/#blogger_bio

(She did a post about Gen. Kevin Byrnes, a 4 star general who was removed from his post for having an extramarital affair with a civilian.)

[BlooInBloo]

10. I'm a big fan of keeping the military and its CIVILIAN leadership as separate as practically...

... possible. So I'd say nay to that. Opinions differ on this issue, of course.

[bain_sidhe]

11. You know she's retired, though, right?

Just checking. But I can understand and respect your concern--she was career military, after all. But I don't share it. ATD (Agree to Disagree)

[BlooInBloo]

12. Yup.