With the Democratic race all but sewn up, if Barack Obama hasn’t begun the search for a Vice President yet, the process will be underway soon.

In fact, a Democratic activist says that Jim Johnson, a former Fannie Mae CEO who helped screen prospective VPs in both 1984 and 2004, has accepted Obama’s request to begin the selection process for the No. 2 spot.

We have no way of knowing for sure who’s in the running, but we have some ideas. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think of these choices for Vice President - or if we’ve left off someone you think is worthy.

Who will - or should - Barack Obama choose as his Vice President?

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton

Pros: Tenacious. Seen it all, done it all. Talk of “dream ticket” still resonates with many voters who have invested heavily in this contentious campaign.
Cons: As divisive as they get, plus there’s some hostility from Obama’s camp. When you suggest that your opponent is unprepared to lead, that’s to be expected. Also, Michelle Obama is not a fan of the idea.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson

Pros: Has major Cabinet-level and national security experience. Governor of a critical state. Member of key demographic group — Hispanics. His huge endorsement during Rev. Wright mess gave Obama a boost.
Cons: Bill Richardson can be an uneven campaigner, doubts about his ‘00 and ‘04 V.P. vetting linger - and putting an African-American and Mexican-American on the ticket at the same time might (sadly) give pause to some.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell

Pros: This could be the one. A popular figure in a key state, he helped deliver Pennsylvania for Hillary Clinton. A plausible president, and a smart, tough and respected party Democrat not tied to any particular constituency. Would embrace Obama loyally and undoubtedly help the ticket.
Cons: Little national security experience.

Continue reading this article …

Who’s in to win, and who’s in without a snowball’s chance in hell? The 2008 election is a year and a half away, but the race is in full effect, and the After W staff has once again handicapped the Democratic field (previous rankings in parentheses)…

1. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Senator (1)

The Hillary Clinton money machine rolls on, methodically stockpiling both operatives and cash. The endorsement of Tom Vilsack will help her in Iowa, although the fact that he never polled well there in the first place is a telling sign. The clear frontrunner handled the “Hillary 1984” video about as well as one could (she didn’t have its creator offed… yet).

2. Barack Obama, Illinois senator (2)

The usual pattern is that an upstart candidate like Barack Obama gets the Messiah treatment from the media, only to be torn apart once he becomes a true contender. The media’s obsession with Clinton has buffered Barack Obama somewhat, but he isn’t trending all that positively either. Could the luster be wearing off? Ever so slightly?

3. John Edwards, former North Carolina Senator (4)

Making good progress connecting with people, seemingly offering more substance than his chief competition. Polls show him leading in Iowa where he needs a win, and making up ground in New Hampshire as well. The story of his wife, Elizabeth, battling cancer only showcased his family as a true team, despite some pundits’ cries for them to call the campaign off.

4. Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States (3)

Still within striking distance at a moment’s notice, but with Al Gore, one gets the impression he’s using the possibility of entering the race as a means of garnering attention and leverage in his ongoing battle against global warming. He’s too smart not to exploit this, and if it is his primary motivation, we still laud every moment of his efforts.

5. Bill Richardson, New Mexico Governor (5)

This isn’t the NCAA Tournament. When the media is calling you a sleeper, that’s generally not a good sign. There’s no doubt he’d compete well against anyone in the GOP field, but Bill needs to pick it up, and quick.

6. Chris Dodd, Connecticut Senator (6)

A distinguished, affable fellow - one with the best hair in politics, no less - who really classes up the race. It won’t get Chris Dodd many votes against the heavyweights ahead of him, but his presence is a boost for the party.

7. Joe Biden, Delaware Senator (9)

The good news: Joe Biden is the big mover and shaker this time around, having leapfrogged two candidates! The bad news: look down who he jumped. Oh well.

The Senate passing its Iraq war resolution nonetheless means Biden’s stock rises. He has no chance, but it’s a start.

8. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Congressman (7)

Not seeing the same kind of support as he did last time around. Which is too bad, because even that wasn’t all that much.

9. Mike Gravel, former Alaska Senator (8)

Our dark-horse pick to take over the 7th spot next time. Watch.

FINISHED/UNRANKED: Al Sharpton, Tom Vilsack, Evan Bayh, Wesley Clark, John Kerry.

Who’s hot? Who’s not? Who’s going down faster than Monic- nevermind. Sure, the 2008 election is is more than a year and a half away. We all know full well that the race is underway and getting testy. That said, every week, the After W staff will handicap the Democratic field…

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1. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Senator

Can the juggernaut be stopped? With a huge fundraising edge and the world’s top political consultant by her side - for free, 24/7/365 - it will take something major to knock Hillary Rodham Clinton out of the top spot.

Follow her for a week and see how she operates. She’s a killer on the campaign trail, instantly ready to rebut anything her top opponent, Barack Obama, does.

It’s classic procedure from a classic, procedural campaign that will be really, really hard to stop.

In our view, the Democratic campaign will be more like a coronation unless the country gets really bored, or one man steps up - and not the person immediately below Hillary Clinton on this list. More on that later.

2. Barack Obama, Illinois senator

The big crowds keep coming, but we’re still skeptical. Barack Obama supporters are genuinely curious about him, even if his rock star status enables him to do superbly in polling without really saying much. He’s an inspiring figure, without a doubt, and the money he raises is nothing to sneeze at. But really, does this guy have any real business being in a race against Nos. 1 and 3 on this list?

3. Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States

Yes, he’s third on our list despite the fact that, you know, he’s not in the race. That’s saying something. Moreover, if there are more events like the Academy Awards, where the Goracle enjoyed staggering amounts of free, overwhelmingly positive media, he’ll move up to #2. Without running.

In one press conference, which some insiders believe is coming, Gore could knock Obama and/or John Edwards out. James Carville believes Al Gore will run because the Clintons know that if he does, preliminary interest in Obama ultimately translates into solidarity with Gore.

And when the Ragin’ Cajun speaks, we listen.

Plus, does anyone doubt his ability to raise money, with the growing number of famous friends and policy wonks who’d throw their support behind him in about two seconds? He’s off to a slow start in the race to $100 million, but he can definitely make up ground fast enough to have a shot.

Here’s hoping. For now, keep an eye on his waistline - some insiders believe if Gore plans on entering the race, the environmentalist will slim down to fightin’ weight (a la the newly-svelte Bill Richardson, below).

4. John Edwards, former North Carolina senator

He’s a solid #3 among candidates that are actually running. The 2004 V.P. nominee has some of the most progressive ideas out there (a health care overhaul that might actually fly) and is one of the most engaging people on Earth. His “two Americas” stump speech and belief in government’s “moral obligation” to help the less fortunate give John Edwards lasting credibility and style points from the left.

Yet he’s been more or less invisible for a few weeks now. Ann Coulter uttering a gay slur about him could be the best thing that’s happened to Edwards in that it got him some positive PR. Prior to that, it was his weak foreign policy record earning the headlines.

5. Bill Richardson, New Mexico Governor

Favorable press coverage in Western states, a solid Nevada forum appearance that impressed many insiders, a major New Mexico fundraising event and his status as the race’s only active governor keep Richardson afloat in a race that has already finished (officially or otherwise) candidates with much better name recognition.

A couple of early mishaps and black marks haven’t appeared to quell his slow, but steady momentum. He’s got a great resume and is pretty likable, too. The question is, will Bill Richardson last long enough for America to discover this?

6. Christopher Dodd, Connecticut Senator

The Hartford Courant reports that his fundraising efforts have been steady, and he’s reiterated his interest in running several times. No one doubts Christopher Dodd is a devoted public servant with a strong record on most core issues. What’s in doubt is whether he’s merely angling for the V.P. nod.

7. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Congressman

The quirky FDR Democrat stands by his convictions, that’s for sure. But unlike 2004, everyone hates the Iraq war now, so he’s lost his favorite talking point.

He has no chance. At all. This is common knowledge. But just the same, Dennis reportedly set an ambitious goal of raising $50 million for his campaign in 2007, and even it he doesn’t get a quarter of the way there, Kucinich may be the last candidate in the field to concede.

8. Mike Gravel, former Alaska Senator

Unfortunately, Gravel’s last name isn’t pronounced like it’s spelled (it’s Grav-ELL), which would seem fitting for the hardened, 72-year-old Alaskan.

IHere’s Gravel’s campaign in a nutshell, since we guarantee you know nothing about him. The linchpin of his outsider candidacy is his support for direct democracy, as well as a national sales tax, the abolition of the IRS, withdrawal from Iraq right now, a single-payer national health care system, and term limits.

Hey, at least he’s got some ideas (often considered a key to success in politics) and hasn’t made ridiculous comments about one of the frontrunners. For that, he edges out Joe Biden (see below)!

9. Joe Biden, Delaware Senator

We have to give Joe Biden credit for persevering through the first few days of his campaign, when his chances were officially shot to hell. For a recap, see our post about Biden’s bumbling announcement day.

In any case, he’s starting to emerge after laying low awhile. The full damage of his announcement debacle should be fully realized as soon as Biden learns he can’t raise anywhere near the cash of Christopher Dodd. And Chris Dodd is running sixth in our Democratic rankings right now. Just saying.

FINISHED/UNRANKED: Al Sharpton, Tom Vilsack, Evan Bayh, Wesley Clark, John Kerry.

Over the next two years, we’ll talk a lot about how organization and money establish who wins votes or how the Internet hijacks the process. Forget about it, the Boston Phoenix asserts: presidential politics conforms to a small number of rules that don’t much change from one campaign year to the next, and Rule #1 is the simplest of all:

Ideas. Win. Campaigns.

Sure, a winning campaign benefits from lots of things, from a ton of money and good press to a successful strategy. We’ve already watched Joe Biden implode, and we look forward to John McCain losing his temper in public for the first time.

But by focusing such heavily on these things, the media tends to overlook what a successful candidate needs above all: a central vision. A compelling idea.

In the end, voters don’t really care which organizers the candidates hire in New Hampshire; they care about where the prospective leaders promise to take the United States of America.

An idea is not a platform or a collection of boring policy proposals, or a bunch of ambiguous positions (cough, John Kerry).

Rather, it’s a broad animating concept that voters can rally around.

John Kennedy inspired America by proclaiming “It’s Time to Get This Country Moving Again.” After Watergate and Vietnam, Jimmy Carter reminded us that it needed a complete Washington outsider at the reins of government. Bill Clinton understood that a new Democratic Party needed to re-establish its appeal to the average voters - and that it was the economy (stupid) that mattered most to them.

This year, a lot of candidates have big ideas. As the first serious woman presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton will likely focus her campaign on the idea that a woman would be a very different and better type of leader than a man (whether Hillary represents that notion authentically is a different matter entirely, but that’s for another time).

Barack Obama, meanwhile, will undoubtedly articulate a similar vision from the perspective of race; he’s already begun to argue for a new beginning of partisan-free politics that could tie neatly into this theme.

The notion of the first female or black president is so powerful that New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, a fine candidate and himself the nation’s first credible Hispanic presidential aspirant, may have trouble getting traction just because he isn’t Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

The bottom line is that with Obama and Clinton in the race, the rest of the Democratic field better have big ideas of their own.

John Edwards, with his poverty-centered “two Americas” theme, has clearly given some thought to how he might compete with the front-runners , while the rest of the Democratic field doesn’t seem as prepared.

Continue reading this article …

According to Wesley Pruden of the Washington Times, the Democrats have the killer ticket for aught-eight: Joe Biden (pictured) and John Kerry.

Of course, it’s unclear which party they’d be killing.

By rendering their rare brand of campaign magic and insulting everyone at once, Biden-Kerry would wipe the convention clean. Nobody would attract media attention like Joe and John opening their mouths.

You could say this hasn’t been a week to - as Borat might phrase it - make benefit for the glorious U.S. Senate. The honorable members of the planet’s most exclusive club are jockeying for position to attach their names to resolutions denouncing others’ resolutions.

Joe Biden blew his thin presidential chances before he even left the starting block. John Kerry blew off what remained of his Senate cachet, finally conceded the 2004 election and ultimately dropped out of the 2008 race he was never in - and all by simply being himself.

When you start your campaign being quoted saying something monumentally dumb, as Biden did - that Barack Obama is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” - it’s generally not a good sign.

Biden insists, no doubt accurately, that he meant neither slur nor slander of Barack Obama. Neither did Trent Lott with his infamous birthday tribute to the late Strom Thurmond, but his remarks still cost him his post as majority leader.

You might think that U.S. senators, forever telling everyone within earshot what deep thinkers and artful speakers they all are, would be better spoken than to frame a compliment as an insult.

Interestingly, Biden was no harsher on Obama than he was on John Edwards or Hillary Clinton in his critique of the Democratic field, which was published by the New York Observer. But a man who can’t spot a gaffe this size a mile away will find the road to the White House to be a short one.

What Sen. Joe Biden intended to do Wednesday was to declare his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. And he did.

But he did more than that.

Instead, Biden took the 2008 stage with a decidedly less-than-presidential conference call on his website, talking over loud echoes and a blaring TV set, struggling to explain bizarre comments he made about one member of the Democratic field.

His description of Sen. Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” raised eyebrows, and was not how Joe Biden envisioned his candidacy beginning.

Biden, admitting he had been quoted accurately, volunteered that he had called Obama to express regret that his remarks had been taken out of context and that Obama had assured him he had nothing to explain.

“Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that the Democratic or Republican candidate has produced at least since I’ve been around,” he said. “Call Senator Obama. He knew what I meant by it. The idea was very straightforward and simple. This guy is something brand new that nobody has seen before.”

“My mother has an expression: Clean as a whistle and sharp as a tack,” he said, ironically trying to undo his gaffe by showering ample praise on one of his biggest obstacles to winning his party’s nomination.

But what did Biden mean in his use of the word “clean”?

“He understood exactly what I meant,” said Biden. “I have no doubt that Jesse Jackson and every other black leader - Al Sharpton and the rest - will know exactly what I meant.”

When asked again what he meant, Biden bristled as he struggled over echoes and feedback that made it sound as if he were talking from a street corner in Baghdad, the New York Times reports, rather than his office on Capitol Hill.

Ah, the Internets.

“I’m not going to repeat everything I just said. There’s a vote that starts at 2:30, it takes 11 minutes to get to the floor. I can take one more question but not on the subject I have already spoken to,” he said.

After taking one more question, Biden did something entirely out of character and announced he was done talking.

Continue reading this article …

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who has fought against sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, has officially joined the crowded field of Democratic contenders seeking to win the 2008 White House race.

“I respectfully suggest to you that the Democrats out there understand I am the only person out there with a plan that can get us out of Iraq,” he told reporters Wednesday.

“There is no possibility of a solution in Iraq that is military,” added Biden, pictured (left) with colleague and fellow 2008 candidate Christopher Dodd.

“There is no need to have a long-term stationing of troops in Iraq.”

According to Reuters, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged that the international community be tapped to help bring an end to violence.

Biden sponsored a non-binding resolution approved last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposing President George W. Bush’s wildly unpopular plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

Biden, 64, and a six-term senator, is the eighth Democrat to enter the 2008 White House race, often polling in the low single digits behind Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and 2004 V.P. nominee John Edwards.

Biden plans to campaign on Monday in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary-style election in the nominating process. His trip will follow Clinton’s planned travel in the state over the weekend.

Biden acknowledged he would quit the race if he did not place well after the first four states - Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“It’s clear that not all of us are going to be standing after South Carolina. If I’m not in it at that point, I’m out,” he said.

It’s interesting that despite the overwhelming Obama-Clinton-mania gripping the party, Senators such as Dodd and Biden aren’t willing to turn this into a coronation just yet. Is there resentment among these Senate icons that they are being shoved to the side? Are they hoping to tout their foreign policy credentials and position themselves for the V.P. spot on the Democratic ticket? It’ll be interesting to watch.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) told NBC’s Meet the Press that he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, reports MSNBC.

He officially threw his hat in the 2008 presidential race with a promise to get U.S. foreign policy in gear - and a light-hearted, optimistic, Bob Dole-esque third-person reference.

“I am running for president,” he told the program’s host, Tim Russert. “I’m going to be Joe Biden, and I’m going to try to be the best Biden I can be. If I can, I got a shot. If I can’t, I lose.”

The Delaware senator went on to say that he will be filing the necessary paperwork to create an exploratory committee by the end of the month.

The new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is one of the Democrats’ most experience spokesmen on international affairs.

With about $3.5 million in his campaign account, the exploratory committee will help him raise money and gauge potential support. He’s campaigned in early voting states such as New Hampshire and Iowa, as well as South Carolina and Nevada, already.

Biden has also been one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush’s policy in Iraq, saying Thursday that he believed top officials in the administration of George W. Bush had privately concluded they had lost Iraq and were simply trying to postpone disaster.

“I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost,” Biden told The Washington Post.

“They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy — literally, not figuratively.”

Biden made the comments in an interview as he outlined an ambitious agenda for the committee he will chair, including holding four weeks of hearings focused on every aspect of U.S. policy in Iraq.

The Senator has expressed opposition to the President’s expected plan for a surge of troops in Iraq, stating doubts about the Iraqi government’s ability to implement a new approach.

We at AfterW are curious to see if Biden’s campaign can build serious momentum. Despite more than three decades in the U.S. Senate, a strong record, and more experience than any Democratic challenger (save for Al Gore), he lacks the name recognition of some already-declared candidates.

Biden also leans closer to the center of the Democratic Party, which may be of use to him in a general election but hurt him in an effort to raise funds for primaries. At that level, for what it’s worth, Biden’s strength on national security is likely to be overshadowed, and a populist message such as John Edwards‘ seems more likely to resonate.

As far as character goes, Biden is by all accounts an upstanding individual, though the Washington Post calls his “manic-obsessive running of the mouth” the most likely trait to hurt his efforts.