Nunn-sense

By Libby

By now you've probably heard that Obama released a list of new hires for the national campaign and most notable was Hillary's former campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, who will be acting as chief of staff for the as yet unnamed VP candidate. I saw a lot of speculation about what it all means in terms of Hillary's chance at being asked to fill that slot on the ticket. I'm in the camp that thinks this hire pretty much rules that out and judging by the reaction from the Clinton loyalists, who are not happy campers, it would appear we're correct in that assessment.

As regular readers know, I didn't think Obama/Clinton would be a good ticket, so I'm not unhappy to see this development. Otherwise, I haven't had strong feelings about it, until I read Chris Bowers post. Chris makes a pretty good case on why he thinks Sam Nunn is now becoming a serious contender. I hope he's wrong. It would be a disaster as Chris sums up well himself.

Putting a 70-year old, white, southern, corporate dude on the ticket would almost entirely wipe away any notion that Obama is a "change" candidate. Sam Nunn is more status quo than David Broder. He is the least "change" candidate one can find.

I find it difficult to believe Obama wouldn't realize that as well, so I'm reserving my panic. I'm betting on Obama ignoring the speculation, along with the billions of bytes of free advice currently clogging the intertubes and naming someone that no one expected.

Comments

[Cheryl Rofer]

What Sam Nunn has is impeccable credentials on controlling nuclear weapons and foreign policy in general. He is one of the directors of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and one of the co-signers (with George Schultz, William Perry and Henry Kissinger) of two Wall Street Journal op-eds (Januaries of 2007 and 2008) arguing that . With Dick Lugar, he originated the program to control nuclear materials in Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Obama has co-sponsored legislation with Lugar that follows similar lines, including negotiating with Russia to take missiles off alert; pretty much the next steps in the WSJ op-eds.

One way that the United States could regain moral leadership in the world would be to take up the program in those op-eds wholeheartedly. That would mean that the president would get out in front with some bold proposals in conjunction with the other nuclear weapon states.

I'm hoping that Obama's serious consideration of Sam Nunn indicates that he is thinking this way.

[Libby]

I didn't know about his anti-nuke creds Cheryl. That's heartening to hear. But it doesn't change my mind that 70 year old, fully entrenched, corporate friendly pol would be disaster on the ticket. Not a good balance.