By all accounts, we'll soon find out who Barack Obama's running mate will be, so this post will be best if consumed by Wednesday. This morning on the radio I heard it suggested that Colin Powell could make for a very appealing running mate. The commentator praised his military and foreign affairs experience, the "post partisan" nature of the idea, and even contended that Powell's pro-Iraq invasion may not be that problematic because general impression seems to be that his public position in favor of the war was taken reluctantly (and contrasts with his private, genuine position). Of course, as room elephants go, this hypothetical has an awfully big one. Would a ticket of two African-American men be "too much"? This morning's commentator suggested that it may not be - if you don't like Powell because he's black, you probably didn't like Obama in the first place.
I'd like to call this the marginal racism theory, and I used to believe it. In casual veepstakes conversations, I would advocate for Bill Richardson - you gain foreign policy experience, executive experience, and appeal to a large up-for-grabs demographic, while probably not giving up too much because of the marginal racism thing. Moreover, I would argue, anyone who really includes race in their voting decision is probably voting for the other guys anyway.
Well - I would make this argument fairly in the primary; the Clinton campaign pretty well disabused me of it. I don't believe in the marginal racism theory any more. I think its fatal flaw is that it ascribes too high a level of internal logic - and of all human attitudes to try to ascribe logic to, racism might be the biggest waste of time.
Postscript - I wouldn't mind a Republican running mate if it's Chuck Hagel - I think he would absolutely help land the security paranoiac demographic. If the biggest knock against him is that he's pro-life, well, I'd say as VP there's not much he could do to act on that position, however deeply held it may be (and he doesn't seem to be at Brownback level, does he).
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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I'm on the Bill Richardson wagon too, Luvh. I think he's an astoundingly competent statesman. Word is though, that he has "woman troubles". Yet another example of why I detest U.S politics. I really wish that we could simply elect the person who, in our opinion would do the best job, rather than who we like the most. We've all seen where we end up when we elect a drinking buddy president. Speaking of which, I never did get to have that beer with W... wasn't that one of his campaign promises?
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