Surprisingly I agree with opedbo... Gephardt would no way swing MO for the Dems, he could boost Kerry in WV perhaps but then again i think the dems will make gains there thanks to economic issues regardless of the VP the same can be said of Ohio as well...
Gephardt in my view along with Vilsack and Hillary is perhaps one of the worst potential VPs for Kerry… Kerry needs a moderate (Gephardt is about as leftwing as you can get while remaining in the main stream, his policies have a hell of a lot in common with Mondale and we all know where those got the Dems last time), Kerry also needs someone with a little flare who can be a bench mark for the future as his running mate, it has been suggested that Kerry should not have a southern running mate as the Dems don’t have a shot in the south there are two reasons why this argument is phoney 1.) The Dem ticket needs to help rather than hinder senatorial and congressional candidates across the south, 2.) A VP will not necessarily only boost the candidate at the top of the ticket in the region in which they hail from, Edwards would boost Kerry in the Midwest and rust belt far more than he would boost Kerry in the south IMHO (in my view Edwards comes across a lot like a more plausible moderate version of Gephardt policy wise)…. Kerry best choices for VP are Bill Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Mark Warner, Evan Bayh, Bob Graham and Phil Bredesen…
If Kerry is smart (and get the sense he is very smart) Gephardt, Hillary and Vilsack will not get more than a glance… he’ll pick a moderate who has broad national appeal amongst moderates and conservative democrats…
We've discussed this somewhat in another thread. Kerry has to be very, very confident that Nelson or Graham can win Florida in order to pick them. I'm not a big fan of Bayh as a running mate. As popular as he is in his state, I don't think he can win Indiana for Kerry even under the best circumstances. Bredesen lacks a lot of charisma - I've heard him speak a couple of times - not bad, not great. Vilsack helps Kerry hang on to Iowa, but not much else.
Landrieu will do very little in LA.
Kerry has to find the runing mate that will give him multi-state appeal in places like West Virginia, Ohio, Arizona and Nevada. Warner of Richardson I think. I still have doubts about Edwards. I would have felt better about Edwards if he had done better in Ohio and Georgia.
Hoops
