And the nominees are.....

After my last rant, I have a bad taste in my mouth. So, I'm going to do something fun. I'm gonna talk about who Barrack Obama is going to pick as his running mate. There are a number of contenders out there. However, after discussing it with my resident political expert (Barrett, my boyfriend), we the pundit-class, have come up with our "short-list".

Without, further ado, here are our top choices.

1. Governor Kathleen Sebelius (KS). Well, I must say I had my doubts, her response to Bush's State of the Union, while a good speech, didn't have the most effective delivery. I wasn't sure she would be tough enough. Then, I learned somethings about her time as Governor of Kansas. She won the governorship partially due to a great divide in her state's Republican party between moderates and conservatives. Perhaps most important is she is credited with vast improvements in Kansas' economy. She created two years of job growth, didn't increase taxes, didn't cutback basic services, and balanced the budget.

"A commission that Sebelius appointed to find government waste discovered that the state owned hundreds of cars it didn't use. So she sold 700 of them and forbade state agencies to buy more. The money earned from the car sale was small, but it showed that the new Governor was determined to find savings anywhere she could, from having all state agencies join together to bid for computers to asking state housekeeping workers to wear their own pants instead of government-issued ones."

Very impressive! I like her style.

Also noteworthy is that her husband is a Republican in the KS House, her father was governor of Ohio (where she has strong ties and is a big swing state this year), and she was the chairman of the Democratic Governor's Association, giving her strong ties to the governor's of various states throughout the country.

Education is her other major issue in Kansas. She has increased funding for K-12 by $1 billion for the next three years in her state, with Republicans in control of the House and Senate no less.

She has had some trouble with a concealed-weapon law in her state. She vetoed it, but her legislature overrode her decision. She was adamant that the law could harm children. She did however, repeal a law that prohibited civilians from owning machine guns, since it affected law enforcement officials ability to attain them for themselves. So she has been on both sides of this issue.

The conversion of several Republican politicians to Democrat in the Kansas government cannot be overstated, as the same thing has been evidenced in the voting populace in Kansas. The ability to have this effect on Republicans, to cross the aisle, to get Republicans to vote Democrat, to sway Independents, is a great weapon to have. I underestimated Sebelius earlier, I won't ever again.

2. Governor Bill Richardson (NM). No talk of an Obama V.P. cannot include Richardson. His endorsement was well-timed and helped Obama through a tough time, to say nothing of making headlines for turning against his history with the Clintons.

Richardson is gravitas. He undoubtedly has the best portfolio of the contenders for the position. Richardson is a governor, has run for the presidency, and served in the House. He was the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and the Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton. He has been chairman of the Democratic National Convention (2004) and of the Democratic Governor's Association (2005-2006), in which Dem's took the majority of the governorships in the country.

All this means he has ties throughout the country and at various levels of government. He has foreign policy credentials, energy credentials, and the two put together is a very good thing considering the predicament we are in right now with our dependence on foreign sources of energy (oil). He would greatly improve our standing in the world. He has experience coming out of his ears, having served at the state, national, and international level. He also has served as a negotiator, dealing with Saddam Hussein of all people, in releasing hostages. The importance of this story, both as evidence of heroism, leadership, and diplomacy cannot be understated.

In the House, he was very interested in Native American and Hispanic/Latino issues. As Ambassador to the U.N. he is known for his work with peace between Israel and Palestine and the environment and ecology. His tenor as Secretary of Energy did have one notable negative, the Wen Ho Lee nuclear espionage scandal, where he was a bit slow in releasing information.

He has written on and researched North Korea extensively, and has been part of the Bush administration's delegation on dealing with their nuclear problems. He has also been key in negotiating some cease fires in the Darfur region, Sudan, while also governing NM. He is pro-gay rights. He has a history as a stockholder with various energy companies, though he sold all of his stock when he ran for President starting in 2007.

Richardson's time as governor of New Mexico has also been distinguished. He has proposed and passed personal income tax cuts. NM became the first state to offer life insurance up to $400,000 for active National Guard personal, which 35 states have since followed through on. He formed Governor Richardson's Investment Partnership (GRIP) in 2003 with the help of the NM legislature which works on highway and infrastructure projects throughout NM. He also passed a concealed weapons law and a medical marijuana law in NM. The Cato Institute has called him one of the most fiscally responsible governor's in the U.S.

Wow! That is quite the list, hard to overlook that as well.

Overall, I feel these are the two candidates to beat. Both offer Obama more executive experience. Sebelius offers "crossing the aisle" appeal and has been proven in doing not only that, but in getting Republicans to vote Democrat. Richardson offers foreign policy and energy policy credentials, which is an understatement. He's that qualified. Sebelius would help turnout the woman vote, Richardson the Hispanic and Native American vote. Both are very popular in their states and could help lock them in for Obama. Sebelius would be the riskier of the two as far as locking in Kansas goes since it is very Republican, though still a swing state. New Mexico would definitely break heavily for Obama-Richardson, as Richardson is very popular there.

Finally, I want to leave you with my first pick and the outsider of the group. However, his credentials and, more importantly, what he represents definitely leave him a definite possibility.

The third, my first pick and the final nominee:

3. Senator Russ Feingold (WI).

I have to admit my bias here. I am a native son of Wisconsin, and I am very proud that Russ Feingold represents my home state.

Obama is running on a message of "new politics" and "hope". I get both from Russ Feingold. He is cut from a different cloth than most on Capital Hill. It's called integrity. Feingold has it, he's kept it, despite being on the Beltway for going on 15 years now. He has served as the junior Senator from Wisconsin since 1993.

Furthermore, Feingold brings "grassroots" cred. I don't think any candidate would fire up our grassroots efforts more than Feingold. He would ignite our new and growing "activist" base. Perhaps that could be construed as a bad thing, you know, "too liberal". I can't argue against that. However, Independents do like him. One additional note to consider is Feingold's multiple divorces- which could be spun in a bad way. Of course, it didn't seem to hurt Giuliani too much when he was running.

Feingold is of course the key engineer, along with Senator McCain, in bringing about the Bipartisan Campaign Act or McCain-Feingold bill. The new politics Obama is speaking about began right there, I believe. A very revolutionary bill at the time, it reduces the amount of "soft money" campaigns receive as well as prohibiting corporations from putting out polical ads. Certainly, it has improved our political campaign process and discourse, balancing the playing field. Feingold would agree that much more can be done. To that end, he has worked on a bill banning lobbyists from giving gifts to legislators and requires more disclosure from legislators of their accounting. This bill is currently awaiting a vote. He also opposes pork barrel spending. Of course, McCain vs. Feingold on the campaign trail could be gold, since McCain has been a flip-flopper on campaign reform since their work together. I'd love to see Feingold call him out on it.

Also, important is his opposition to the war in Iraq since the start, he voted against the authorization for force against Iraq, stood up for our privacy rights and voted against the Patriot Act, has opposed NAFTA and similar trade deals, and has voted for immigration reform, including bill S.2611 which doubles the amount of work visas to the U.S. I'm sure Lou Dobbs hates that one. He is pro-universal healthcare though opposed the Clinton plan in the 90's saying it was a hand out to the corporations. He has authored a plan called the State-Based Health Care Reform Act. He supports legalizing gay marriage. Gun rights are a mixed bag with Feingold.

He is a budget hawk and has been endorsed by Libertarians, which could have appeal among Independents and some Republicans.

Ultimately, I believe it is things like this that would be used against him (which is really sad):

"Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal advocacy group that rates members of Congress on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero being completely conservative and 100 completely liberal, gave Feingold a lifetime average rating of 98. The American Conservative Union ranked him a 12, where 0 is most liberal and 100 is most conservative. In 2004, the NRA gave him a grade of D (with F being the lowest grade and A the highest). . . . .The ACLU gave him a score of 89 percent."

(From Wikipedia).

But here is why he would be so good for Obama:

"The Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan advocacy group that pushes for fiscal responsibility, placed him on its "Senate Honor Roll" every year since 1997, and ranked him in the top two every year since 1998, making their suggestion that Feingold is also one of the top budget hawks in Congress." "Feingold, who was elected to Congress on a promise not to accept pay raises while in office, has so far returned over $50,000 in such raises to the U.S. Treasury. In addition, he is notoriously frugal in his office's spending, and sends back the money that he does not use. In one six-month period in 1999, for example, his office received $1.787 million in appropriations and returned $145,000, a higher percentage than any other senator.".

(All from Wikipedia).

Finally, he has run some great campaigns. He's capped his fundraising, refused soft money, refused promotional ads from special interest groups, eschewed negative campaigning. He embraced grassroots methods, such as, when facing two millionaire opponents in his first race and on a limited budget he:

"adopted several proposals to gain the electorate's attention. The most memorable of these was a series of five promises written on Feingold's garage door in the form of a contract. These were:
-I will rely on Wisconsin citizens for most of my contributions.
-I will live in Middleton, Wisconsin. My children will go to school here and I will spend most of my time here in Wisconsin.
-I will accept no pay raise during my six-year term in office.
-I will hold a "Listening Session" in each of Wisconsin's 72 counties each year of my six-year term in office.
-I will hire the majority of my Senate staff from individuals who are from Wisconsin or have Wisconsin backgrounds.

When I saw the above in an ad is the moment when I said " I like this guy" and I've been liking him ever since. Inegrity. Honesty. Reform. Progress. That's Feingold, and that's why I wish he could be our Vice President.

Update: Other names to consider- Gov. Janet Napolitano (AZ), Gov. Bill Schweitzer (MT), Rep. Loretta Sanchez (CA), Sen. Claire Macaskill (MO), Sen. Chris Dodd (CT) and Sen. Joe Biden (DE). Overall, I consider another legislator to be an unlikely choice, not enough executive cred. Napolitano and Schweitzer definitely deserve another look, as do Gov. Tim Kaine (VA) and Gov. Phil Bredesen (TE). I would consider Clinton and Clinton supporters a very unlikely choice. Of her supporters, I would consider Gen. Wesley Clark to be at the top of my list. Perhaps, there are some other generals that could be on here as well.