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Reading the VP tea leaves

James Forsyth

Monday, 16th June 2008

At first glance the news that Hillary’s former campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle is going to be chief of staff to Obama’s running mate, seems to suggest that he’ll pick Hillary. But as Ben Smith argues, it actually indicates that it is unlikely to be Hillary.

First of all, Hillary sacked Solis after Super Tuesday. Second, Solis Doyle blotted her copybook in Hillary land when it became public that she was talking about a job with the Obama camp even as the primaries were going on. Third, if Obama was going to pick Hillary one would have thought that his campaign would want one of their own people in there with her staff.

For what it’s worth, there’s a lot of buzz around Joe Biden on the Democratic side at the moment. But in reality, very few people know what the Obama campaign is thinking on this. Remember that in 2004 The New York Post splashed on the news that John Kerry had picked Dick Gephardt only for it to turn out later that day that he had actually gone for John Edwards.

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DC Cat

June 17th, 2008 12:45pm

The Clintons ain;t happy: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/06/16/clinton_insiders_take_umbrage.html?hpid=topnews

Curmudgeon

June 18th, 2008 10:57am

The tea leaves are there to read. First: note the co-sponsor on this legislation -

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/us/politics/15cnd-obama.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

It's Senator Evan Bayh, D-IN. Bayh is one of the few who hasn't ruled himself out, as this article from the Indianapolis Star shows:

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080613/NEWS08/806130438/1101/NEWS08

Bayh has the following virtues:

1. Bayh was a Hillary supporter (outreach).
2. Indiana is much like Ohio in composition; this would be outreach to that electorate as well.
3. Bayh has foreign policy and executive experience, but is also too low-profile to upstage Obama.
4. Bayh has no skeletons in his cupboard.
5. The media calls Bayh a "moderate"; he's also the head of the "centrist" Democrat Leadership Council (a Clintonite creation).
6. Bayh will only be 60 in 2016. He's young enough for the theme of "change" to resonate and to be a future President.

The comparisons between Clinton / Gore (President and VP from the same region) will also be drawn between Obama / Bayh.