Certainly, Pennsylvania will be key to victory. Women, older voters, and suburban voters will all be necessary to achieve this win ... Chet Edwards would help Sen. Obama win in swing districts like mine and in states like Pennsylvania...
Chet Edwards would provide strong support to the new administration by engaging Members of Congress to pass critical legislation: health care for all Americans; comprehensive energy policy; new tax policy; and an end to war in Iraq, bringing our troops home safely and responsibly..."
Yes, when you think of champions for new a new energy economy, universal health care, and ending the war in Iraq, Chet Edwards immediately leaps to mind. When you think of people who are good at good at winning suburban women voters in the northeast, nothing would be better than some conservative white dude from Texas.
This is, to be blunt, dishonest bullshit. I explain why in the extended entry.
Chet Edwards has a national name identification in the single digits, and is completely untested as a national campaigner. There probably isn't a single resident of her district that has ever called her office, begging her to help Chet Edwards become Vice-President. He is not known nationally as a champion on any of the major issues Schwartz lists, and is ranked outside the top 200 most progressive members of Congress on virtually every single issue.
The only thing that Chet Edwards is known for--and both Pelosi and Schwartz know this--being the only Democrat to survive the 2003 Texas mid-term redistricting, and also for representing the most Republican district currently held by a Democrat. Along with being a conservative, southern, white dude, those will be the first and most prominent characteristics that the national media will use to describe Chet Edwards if he is selected as Vice-President. Given that Pelosi and Schwartz aren't stupid, they know that this is the message that will be made if Obama picks Chet Edwards. To throw out these arguments about how great a campaigner he will be on the national stage, and to present him as somehow a great champion of progressive causes like withdrawing from Iraq and universal health care, is simply dishonest.
Pelosi and Schwartz should just come out and say that they believe Obama needs to veer hard right in order to win the election, and that they believe America is a fundamentally conservative nation that will reject even the slightest whiff of progressivism at every turn. That is the actual message that will be sent by selecting Chet Edwards as VP, not some nonsense about women in suburban Pennsylvania recognizing him as a longstanding champion for universal health care and withdrawal from Iraq. It isn't so much the wrongheadness of the argument, but rather is brutal dishonesty, that is the problem here.
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