will not get you elected. No vice presidential running mate has EVER been selected for the qualities that those who support Edwards beleive that he should be selected for. Aside from enthusiatic optimism, Edwards has almost nothing to offer Kerry;s canpaign. A number of political observers have noted that it is Gephardt who actually has the most to offer the Kerry campaign, and this was most recently stated in the the British journal, the Economist:
...The swing states are said to have a greater share of wishy-washy voters. Recently, the British magazine The Economist deemed Missouri the most important of the contested battleground states, claiming that ''as Missouri votes so votes the rest of America.'' It printed a map of the state highlighting Democratic strongholds: counties bisecting the state hugging the I-70 corridor, St. Louis to Kansas City. President Bush has been to Missouri almost 20 times already and Sen. John Kerry nearly half that...
...At the Kerry campaign headquarters in Columbia, Mo., the state's largest college town and another Democratic bastion along I-70, a staffer spent more time denouncing Attorney General John Ashcroft than George W. Bush, but that came from the man's intimate knowledge of Ashcroft, who was Missouri's governor for eight years. "We thought we drove a stake through Ashcroft's heart when we elected a dead man instead of him" -- in the 2000 Senate race -- "but he keeps popping back up. I'm working for Kerry as a penance for Missouri foisting Ashcroft on the whole country..."
...Among those who plan to vote for Kerry, more energy was devoted to the question of just who Kerry would choose as his vice president. Dick Gephardt, who is well-know to Missourians, given his long service in Congress as its representative, elicited groans and epithets ("boring") -- though all were certain tapping Gephardt would bring Kerry the state. North Carolina's John Edwards, though, was far and away the female favorite. Countering conventional wisdom, this election might hinge on the Democrat's choice of veep: Whoever it is, he is likely to be more popular with voters than the unpopular John Kerry...
http://www.suntimes.com/output/orourke/cst-edt-rour20.htmlOne thing that those who know politics state about Edwards, regardless of charm. He will not be able to bring a single state over into democratic territory.
Kerry's campaign manager has also recently made a number of statements about Kerry selecting a cnadidate who has had considerable political experiene, because the campaign is rapidly moving from one of demoestic issues back to one regarding Foreign Affairs and National Security.
One thing is certain, Kerry is being more cautious about making his selection than any candidate in the last century. He is said to have been closely studying the vice presidential selection process made by every president clear back to the election of 1930 and has been said to have made the statment that he will not make the kind of mistakes that others have made. He is carefully looking at the pasts of all of the people being vetted for the vp slot. He is said to want to avoid the kind of scandals about VP's that have cropped up over the last 50 years, in some cases. like Agnew, requiring the VP to resign to avoid problems...
How much any of this will influence Kerry, who is reported to have held two private discussions with Edwards, is unclear.
Campaign manager Cahill also said recently that the war in Iraq had increased the importance of picking a vice president with "the stature" to handle national security.
Wynn acknowledges that the buzz about Edwards among Democratic politicians could amount to nothing.
"It's a funny thing," the Maryland congressman said in an interview. "Edwards has gained significant support, but it's not like a race where he controls his own destiny. He could have the greatest momentum in the world."
But in the end, only one vote counts: Kerry's.http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.veep19jun19,0,2030688.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlinesSo far, only two peopleregularly meet with Kerry to discuss what is necessary for the VP nomination, and Cahill is one, Johnson is the other. Both state that nether of them have any idea who Kerry plans to choose.
I am concerned that those who want Edwards do so simply based on his popularity and optomism. That is not enough to do the job of running the country. One might say that George Bush has the same qualities. At least he does to those who support him.
There are a number of problems that Kerry has had with Edwards, and a number of problems that Edwards has directly caused for Kerry's campaign which accoring to some in the Kerry camp, have caused a considerable amount of bad blood towards Edwards in the Kerry camp.
The biggest problem that Edwards caused is that he dragged the primary season on for a great deal longer than it needed to be. Mostly because Edwards insisted that he would not accept the VP seat and that he was running for the Presidency and would keep running clear through to the convention. This cost the Kerry cmapaign intold millions in campaign finances needed to run against Edwards, rather than store them up to use against Bush.
Another thing that Kerry is well known for. He is not one to make choices based on speculation , and it is well known to his cmapaign staff that though he appears calm before the public, he agonizes over every decision and he goes over every fact. Kerry's decisions tend to be based on facts, evidence, and rarely on opinion. When, makes the decision it will be base on facts about the final selection, what the candidate brings to the campaign in cold, hard, tangible support, not in vague unmeasurable qualities like optimism or enthusiasm. IN fact, when you compare Edwards to other possibilities for the VP office, he does not seem to possess any more optimism or enthusiasm than any of the other people Kerry is considering.
Finally one fact, one very historaically clear fact indicated that things do not looks as well for Edwards as those who support him would think...
A recent Associated Press poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs suggested that a majority of registered voters want Kerry to pick Edwards.
Four years ago, few predicted that George W. Bush would turn to Dick Cheney, who headed his search team, or that Lieberman would become the first Jewish vice presidential nominee.
"The vice presidential nomination almost always doesn't go to the person who the people most expect. That doesn't bode well for John Edwards," said Steve McMahon, adviser to former Kerry rival Howard Dean.Missouri is a state that Kerry needs. It is also a state that Gephardt has the greatest swing in, outside of the fact that isi is his home state. It is also the state pf John Ashocroft, who demos slammed to get out of office in that state. Also, the Governor of Missouri, Bob Holden, is heavily supported by every large4 labor union in that state, but more than that, is an ex-Gephardt aide. Organized labor is a key voting block in any democratic campaign. If not the largest/
So far the AFL CIO has provided more financial support to Kerry than all other organizations supporting the Democratic Party. In May alone, they ran pro-Kerry programs that cost 44 million dollars.At the same time that they did this for Kerry's campaign, The AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, and the United Auto Workers all strongly requested that Kerry select Gephardt as his running mate. No matter what, this is a debt that Kerry will hacve to pay back, either now, by selecting Gephardt, or later and a lot more often, if he is elected. The AFL-CIO hinted when they asked for Gephardt that they were willing to spend a great deal more money to help Kerry unseat Bush. particularly during the period between Kerry accepting the nomination, and the Republican Convention, so that Kerry will not hqave to heavily dip into his limited funds during the period when Bush can raise and spend unlimited funds to attack Kerry, while Kerry will bel limited to the 75 million Dollar limits. So far, AFL CIO has spent more money in just one month that Move On .org has raised in total. Kerry needs the unions, It looks like he needs Missouri, and it looks like he may need Gephardt, a good deal more than he needs Edwards, but then again, as noted, one can never tell. Edwards has very little to offer. Personality and Charm do not really make it. Cold hard cash. political support from large organizations, political support from local state elected democratic officials, and the support of local organizations that support them, are far more critical to winning an election than a boyish smile.
Strategically, that is all Edwards really has to offer. He can not realistically be counted on to add one state to Kerry's electoral total. Gephardt has a far better chance of doing so.
One other thing is clear about Kerry, that all of the political pundits have not picked up on. Kerry has not made up his mind yey who his choice is. Another trait of his is to make decisions at the last minute, according to those he is meeting with regularly to discuss the VP choice.
So, as far as it goes. the list of what GEphardt can do for the Kerry campaign, not in vague, unmeasurable and unpredictable qualities like Charisma, enthusiasm, etc, but in cold hadd reality, is a bit longer than such a list is for Edwards.
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