Veepstakes

I don't want to spend to much time on veepstakes speculation as it really is just that: speculation. However, I thought I'd make one brief post to stick my two cents into this. It seems lately that polls and the media are already playing off each other to try and frame this election in terms of the conventional paradigm of Republicans are strong on national security and Democrats are strong on the economy. As the theory goes, whichever of these issues ranks of higher importance in voters' minds on election day will determine who wins. Now, this might have been a plausible paradigm in 1992 when president George H. W. Bush had just fought a successful war in Iraq, but the economy was slipping into recession. It's absurd though, that after 8 years of dubya, anyone could still believe the Republicans are stronger on national security. What have 8 years brought us? A war in Iraq with no end in sight, 4,000 US troops dead (more than were killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11), Al Qaeda growing ever stronger, Iran exerting more influence than ever over the region and coming ever closer to developing nuclear weapons, a North Korea that is reportedly selling nuclear weapons technology to Syria, a Hamas-led government in the Palestinian territories. This administration has been a disaster on national security and McCain offers more the same. If ever there has been a year for Democrats to win the election on national security issues, this is it. And yet, perhaps owing to the length of their respective resumes in the area, the press insists on continuing to portray McCain as strong on national security and Obama as weak. This is why I think Obama needs to pick a running mate with strong, bona fide, national security credentials. Someone who can, and will, forcefully make the case that the Democrats are stronger on national security than the Republicans are. The obvious choices would be Joe Biden, Wesley Clark, Jim Webb, or Sam Nunn. Sam Nunn is probably too old. Jim Webb, while he's obviously been a strong critic of the war in Iraq, I'm not really convinced he shares the basic overall philosophies of the Democratic Party. Between Biden and Clark, though I like them both, and I think they would both be strong picks, my preference goes with Biden. In addition to his national security credentials as chairman of the foreign relations committee, he also brings a long record of accomplishments in Washington, something else Obama is lacking. He will be able to provide president Obama with vital assistance in how to actuallly accomplish things in a city resistant to change.

Perhaps, in the end, Democrats will not be able to claim national security as their issue. There are many people who automatically associate militaristic with strong and non-militaristic with weak. For the good of the country, I hope this is the year Americans finally learn that isn't true. Picking Joe Biden would certainly go a long way towards making that happen.