Yesterday's "Stop Nunn" post generated significantly more email than I usually receive for an article. Almost all of the email generally agreed that Nunn should not be Vice-President, but that my criticisms were too harsh and Nunn might serve a useful role elsewhere in an Obama administration.
For one thing, as reader DC emails, Nunn did at least opposed the Iraq war (both of them, in fact). This is a good sign that Obama is looking to put a war opponent on the ticket:
By one important measurement, Nunn is progressive -- against the Iraq War from the start. His boomlet is a sure sign that the Obama team has (correctly) decided that no one who voted for the war resolution can be on the ticket with him. Yes, there are other reasons to deep six Nunn. But his right call on Iraq has earned him a short list mention.
Martin Longman at BooMan Tribune emailed me a link to an early May post at Scholars and Rogues that argued Nunn should play a key role in an Obama administration because of his work on nuclear disarmament:
Never mind secretary of state, we nominate Sam Nunn for a new cabinet position: secretary of nuclear -- not nonproliferation, but, in the words of sociologist Amitai Etzioni - de-proliferation. Who's better equipped to not only halt, but reverse, the spread of nuclear weapons?
Ed Kilgore at New Donkey doesn't think that Nunn either should, or will, be Vice-President, but he takes umbrage at my assertions that Nunn would be worse than Lieberman, and that the DLC's foudnign mission was to elect Nunn President:
The invidious comparison of Nunn with John McCain's close friend and supporter Joe Lieberman is more than a bit odd, too, since the Georgian shares none of Joe's adoration of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy (au contraire), of the Iraq War, or of John McCain's neo-Cold War posturing towards Russia, China and Iran. Indeed, as a surrogate if nothing else, Nunn could do Barack Obama a lot of good by getting under John McCain's thin skin on his dangerous approach to national security.
One final thing about Chris' post: in an effort, I guess, to bring out the Big Berthas on the Nunn Veep idea, he says that "the DLC was originally founded in order to elect Sam Nunn President. I'm not kidding." Chris' authority for this assertion is a disputed, agit-proppy Wikipedia entry on the DLC which says the group's "original focus was to secure the 1988 presidential nomination of a southern conservative Democrat such as Nunn or [Chuck] Robb."
You know, I somehow don't think that founding DLC chairman Dick Gephardt (who ran for president in 1988), or founding members Al Gore (ditto) and Bill Clinton (who nearly ran that year) were "focused" on elevating Sam Nunn to the presidency in 1988. But this and other bad and good arguments for and against Nunn will be heard a lot if his apparent short-listing for the vice presidency continues.
I certainly overstated the case that the DLC was founded to elect Nunn President, since even the source I cited actually implied that it was founded in order to elect a moderate or conservative southern Democratic Governor or Senator to the White House. Nunn was just an example of the type of politician they sought, not the paradigm or first choice.
As far as Nunn being worse than Lieberman, I based that assertion on Nunn flirting with a Unity 08 ticket run back in 2007. I guess since he didn't actually run as a third-party candidate, while Lieberman did, that in and of itself makes Nunn better. Throw in all of the stuff listed above, and yeah, Nunn is preferably to Lieberman.
Still, while I left out some of the positive things about Nunn, and while I may have used hyperbolic descriptions, there still appears to be a consensus that Nunn would be a poor choice for Vice-President. Even on an electoral level, Poblano accurately points out that Democrats will win Virginia or North Carolina before we win Georgia, and if we win Virginia and North Carolina the election will be decided no matter what happens in Georgia.
For those interested, Dylan Matthews has started a "Having Nunn of It" campaign to oppose Sam Nunn for Obama's Vice-President. Even if what everyone says is right, and that there is really no serious chance of Nunn becoming VP, it still seems like a worthy campaign to support. |
