Better yet, what if he was white? Think about it. Not to be racist, but would he be able to stir the pot as much if he were just another Harvard-bred middle-aged white man?
I doubt it. The idea of the First Black President helped him out a lot. To be honest, if the DP had really made the decision to put a white Harvard grad named Barry Dunham on the ticket with Joe Biden and run with it in '08, I think we would now be talking about President John McCain and the first female VP.
Either that, or we would have a President Dunham, elected by a much more slight margin. Who knows, really? Bush was increasingly unpopular, then, and that may have rubbed off on Republicans in general in the GE. It happened in '76 following Watergate.
Then, we have the distinct lack of experience on Mr. Dunham's part. In the Illinois legislature and in his U.S. Senate position, we would have the simple fact that he did very little that was productive while in office.
I don't think he could have pulled it off, to be perfectly honest. I believe the Democrats would have been compelled to choose somebody else, perhaps Clinton, to run.
