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In a matter of weeks or months, Barack Obama will select a vice presidential candidate to run with him this fall.
In order to get my head around the complexities of the Vice Presidential Selection Process and potential/desired outcomes, I scoured sites from HuffPost, to DKos/MyDD, Open Left, RCP, electoral college, and others to identify all of the candidates being bandied about as either front-runners or reasonable dark horse contenders. I stuck them all in a spreadsheet.
Next, I went through the same process to identify criteria by which a candidate might be selected. These criteria fall into two broad categories, which may be represented using the following principles:
1) ELECTORAL STRENGTH OF TICKET: VP should help Obama win electoral votes, or at least not hurt his chances to win them
2) CAPABILITY / FUTURE PRESIDENTIAL POTENTIAL: VP should make a good president someday, next election or if Obama leaves office
I added a variety of criteria which affect these principles to the spreadsheet.
Below the fold, I include the Top 20 VP candidates being discussed, and a personal ranking with analysis and arguments for why I've placed them where I have. This includes a set of strengths and weaknesses that I've identified for each, using this brainstormed list of criteria that draw upon the 2 principles above.
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