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Obama's Vice Presidential Selection Team

By Jeralyn

Sen. Barack Obama's Vice-Presidential selection team is now in place. It includes Former Deputy U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, Caroline Kennedy and "Democratic insider" Jim Johnson.

Obama said today he'd be speaking with Hillary over the next few weeks, but didn't mention whether the VP slot would be one of the topics.

CNN asks, can he afford not to offer her the position if she wants it? I don't know if she wants it or not. If she wants it, I'm all for her having it.

What happens if it's disclosed she wanted it and wasn't offered it? I imagine many of her 18 million supporters would be quite displeased.

Do her supporters have options other than sitting out the election or switching to Obama or McCain? [More...]

What happens if she suspends her campaign but doesn't concede? Do her pledged delegates stay pledged to her until the convention in Denver?

Could she continue to campaign around the country this summer urging people to vote for the eventual Democratic candidate, praising Obama but not referring to him as the nominee?

Does her promise to campaign for Obama if he's the nominee, begin now or in August when he officially becomes the nominee? Did she ever say?

Obama is the presumptive nominee but there's a lot of loose ends floating around. Every time I hear "he's won" I think, "slow down." He's won when she decides he has won. Until and unless that happens, he has to wait until votes are cast at the convention and he has the necessary majority then.

Hillary is listening to her supporters and I suspect no one will hurry her into making a decision on how to proceed. If she wants the VP slot, and he's not willing to talk to her for a couple of weeks, maybe that's how long she will take before she makes her decision.

Or maybe she will make two decisions. One this week announcing the suspension of her campaign and and another when she's good and ready releasing her pledged delegates. That could be any time up until the convention. Don't pledged delegates stay pledged through the first ballot at the convention?

Seems to me, if Barack Obama wants to cement the deal, he ought to be listening to Hillary now, not in a couple of weeks.

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Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).