Obama’s Veep Choice And The Democratic Party’s Iraq War Complicity Problem

By Kleinheider Posted on May 22, 2008 at 8:40 am

Barack Obama faces some problems in finding a good complementary Veep choice who has not dirtied themselves up with Pro-Iraq War baggage:

[O]ne possible path for Obama — a foreign/military guru known as “Obama’s Cheney” — seems especially promising but hard to find, for two reasons. First, most of the obvious options, such as senators on the Armed Services, Foreign Relations or Intelligence committees, supported authorizing the Iraq war in 2002, and it is hard to see Obama choosing a running mate who disagreed with a central rationale of his candidacy: his opposition to attacking Iraq when most prominent Democrats lined up in support of President Bush’s march to war. Second, some post-2002 arrivals to the Senate, such as Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, are appealing and have no pro-war baggage but lack the years of elective office experience Obama might want to complement his shorter Washington résumé…

…Blasts from the past — the 1990s: Former Sens. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and David Boren (D-Okla.), and ex-Sen. and Defense Secretary William Cohen (R-Maine). Each of these three, who are now in their 60s, after leaving politics in the 1990s, has similar appeal as an independent-minded foreign policy/military elder statesman.

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