Hey everyone, sorry I have been away for about a month. I know you were probably all lost and confused and misguided without me, but hopefully this lone entry will help. This is my last entry before I go away for another three weeks, but after that I'll be back in full swing to cover the last two and a half months leading up to the election.So since I've been gone, not too much has been happening. The New Yorker put a controversial picture of Barack Obama on their cover that was supposed to be a joke, but people didn't get it and thought it was offensive.
The next big thing was Obama's much-anticipated foreign trip. This thing was a huge gamble, because if he made any gaffes, John McCain would not let him hear the end of it, and the American people would still believe that he was too inexperienced on foreign policy matters. But if he succeeded without making any major mistakes, he would be seen as more presidential, and more foreign policy savvy. And we all know that elections are about impressions, not policy.
Obama visited Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, and is now making his last stop in Germany today, where he will be giving a speech in Berlin to about one million people. Now that's presidential.
This trip was an absolutely brilliant idea. Obama made almost no gaffes on the trip, met with world leaders, took photo ops, talked with generals, and was received very well in all of the countries he visited. All in all, he looked very presidential (as if he was already president), and I think this will make a good impression on undecided voters.
On a side note, Obama now plans to extract all of the soldiers from Iraq within the first16 months of his presidency, and then move them to Afghanistan to fight "the real front" in the War on Terror. Obama spoke to several generals while he was abroad on the matter, including Gen. David Patraeus.
Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki was quoted as saying that he agrees with Obama completely about the withdrawal plan. That is a huge slap in the face to the Bush administration, because the guy they put in power is now going directly against them one year later. He later said that he was misquoted and did not want to get involved in American politics.
On the VP front, a few big names have taken themselves off of the list. On the Democratic side, Sen. Jim Webb--my personal choice--took himself off of the list, saying he was focused on being a U.S. Senator for the time being. That basically just leaves Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Tim Kaine, Chris Dodd, Wesley Clark, and Hillary Clinton left.
I think all Obama needs right now is foreign policy experience and expertise, which is why Biden and Richardson are now my two top choices for Obama. Biden is old, experienced, and the go-to guy for foreign policy expertise. Richardson has foreign policy experience and could help to win over Latinos, but the Black-Latino ticket might be too risky.
Obama no longer needs to pick Hillary Clinton as his running-mate, because the party is largely unified--time heals all wounds. At this point she would bring in more negatives than positives.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney is now the front-runner. His ability to raise money, his business experience in the time of a recession, and his pull in Michigan are looking more and more attractive to the McCain campaign. There have been leaks from the McCain campaign reporting that he is the front-runner. He is also my current choice for McCain for VP.
It also helps that Gov. Bobby Jindal--my other personal choice--effectively took himself out of the running, saying that he was not going to be a vice presidential candidate or vice president. How sad for the McCain campaign, they don't know what're they're missing.
So that essentially leaves Mitt Romney, Charlie Crist, Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham, Mark Sanford, and Joe Lieberman.
Graham, Sanford, and Lieberman would be comfortable choices for McCain, because he is close friends with all of them and he would be compatible on the ticket with them. Palin would be an exciting pick that would shake up the race but might overshadow McCain in the process. Huckabee's only positives are that he's nationally known and the evangelicals love him. Portman would help with the economy, and Crist and Pawlenty would help to carry specific states.
It was leaked that the McCain campaign might announce their pick for VP this week to distract the media from Obama's headline-grabbing trip overseas. But he will probably pick his some time after the Democratic National Convention in August. Obama should announce his running-mate in the week before the convention.
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