I guess Avigdor Lieberman wasn't available.

Matthew -- you are too cynical today!

I think that Vilsack's move today was pretty smart.

But the bottom line is that if Hillary does beat Obama in the primary race, then I think it's probably Obama who will be the VP candidate.

best,

Steve Clemons

Steve: I'm not cynical at all. I got to meet Anthony Lake last night and was quite happy to know he will be helping my preferred candidate for President. People like Tony Lake re-etablish my faith in our governing class.

Exactly why should Vilsack's endorsement help Hillary? Tom Harkin, more popular than Vilsack, endorsed frontrunner Howard Dean who got blown out of the water and finished with 18% in the 2004 Iowa caucuses.
Did somebody mention a Clinton? Please go to my web page www.1984ArkansasMotherOfTheYear.com
Click on the column on the left - Hillary and Bill: a Lifetime of Violating People. Here is just a snippet of why Hillary uses a secret police to cover up the Clintons' Jerry Springer lifestyle:

Gov. Bill: getting Aunt Jemimah poontang with the night manager at Little Rock McDonald’s
She says Bill’s penis is “iddy biddy”

Hillary’s crazed sex monkey Bill has screwed hundreds of women of all ages, races, ethnicities and socio economic status. Everything thing from 5 Miss Arkansas’s to a Miss America to drug addicted street hookers, flight attendants, secretaries, assistants, judges and even the night manager at the McDonald’s in Little Rock! These women say Bill has a little bitty pecker but Bill is a real fiend for oral sex, both giving and receiving. Both Gennifer Flowers, who Bill had a 12 year affair with (1977-1989), and Paula Jones, who pervert Bill exposed himself to (5-8-91), say Bill’s penis is not presidential timber. The lady night manager at McDonald's Little Rock says the same thing.
Larry Nichols, formerly an extremely close aide to Bill (before they had a falling out), used to follow Gov. Bill around under “total surveillance.” Larry wanted to know what was Bill’s “distinguishing characteristic.” Larry says:
“One of the people I cornered early on, one of the people I had literally seen Clinton with, was this black lady. She was about four foot eight. Now it’s going to sound like I am exaggerating, but I am not. She was about four foot eight and had, yes, blond hair. She weighed between 250 and 260 pounds. She had one or two, I think both front teeth were gold. This is who I caught Bill Clinton with.” [The Larry Nichols Story, p. 94]
Larry approached this woman and, using duplicity, got her to talk about Gov. Bill. She was afraid of losing her job as the night manager at McDonald’s. Two state troopers confirm Larry’s story by saying they took Bill to see this woman. Larry asked this woman to tell him about Clinton:
“And that’s when she told me [Bill] had a very, very small, almost to the point of what you would call deformed, penis. I mean this guy is lacking badly, if you know what I mean. She said he was ‘iddy biddy’, about two inches. Then, she said he had a fetish – he was just a wild man about oral sex. I mean he was just crazy. And then she told of a mole, she called it that, but it’s actually a birthmark, on the outside of his left buttock.” [The Larry Nichols Story, p. 95]
Trooper Larry Patterson said that Bill had about 15-18 women he regularly saw, plus Bill “would have one-night-stands with an unending parade of different women.” [The Larry Nichols Story, p. 100] As for Hillary, her job was to cover for her crazed sex monkey – and, if necessary, terrify his women/victims - so that Clinton pond scum could climb the political ladder together.

Why do you continue with your nonsense Steve ?

Hagel is not presidential material any more than Hillary is or Obama or the other "front runner" annointed by Big Money candidates.

Time for a real outsider. Someone that will cut the crap.

And, BTW, what happened to the Havana posts ?

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on him not understanding it." — Upton Sinclair

Steve,
I sense you have a deep desire for a new American political consensus. I do too. But a president and vice president must share the same policy vision and priorities. Chuck Hagel may be a singular voice of rationality in the Republican party on Iraq and other foreign policy, but he's an adament conservative opponent of the left and centrist domestic policy vision of Hillary, and his voting record represents it.

I also applaud your idealism. But among the people who matter, there are Dees and there are Arrs. They don't mix well. The same malarkey about a Kerry-McCain dream team got bandied about three years ago. It too came to nothing. Such a move at the either 2008 convention would meet with polite applause and some stirring pep talk by party functionaries, but would certainly receive tepid approval & disenchantment around the country. It's an implicit admission that one's own party just can't quite fill a ticket.

Tom Vilsack didn't get himself a VP nod for the Denver convention. He might have earned the right to name (or be) the Secretary of HHS or Agriculture. But Sen Clinton has far too many compromises left to make along her road to be giving away the prize hog just yet.

Vilsack is totally overrated, and I don't think he has a lot of pull with Iowa dems (one reason why he bowed out before the caucus). Take a look at how badly he stacked the deck with a dysfunctional board of regents. Dems in Iowa City (the bluest spot in the state) really dislike him for that.