The Senate seat – that’s where this column is going

The Politcs Beat column by Chris Graham
[email protected]

Jim Webb just makes too much sense as a VP on the Barack Obama ticket.

And no, you can’t see where this column is going, so stay with me here.

I’ll finish the above thought, which again is not where this column is going. Ahem. Webb brings Virginia to Obama, probably West Virginia, too. Maybe Kentucky. And gives him a better shot in North Carolina and Tennessee.

No way Obama wins in the Deep South, but he doesn’t need to.

Webb, as so many people have been saying the past few days, adds military depth to the Obama ticket that really nobody else in the Veep Sweepstakes can. Plus he’s a Reagan Democrat with red hair and a ruddy complexion who isn’t afraid of guns.

But as I’ve been saying, that’s not where this column is going.

Here’s where it’s going. When Webb is elected vice president, somebody has to fill out his term in the U.S. Senate.

No, it won’t be Tim Kaine appointing Tim Kaine. I suppose he could do that, but it would come across quite the wrong way.

So Kaine will have to appoint somebody else who can’t get in his way when he runs in the special election in 2010 to fill out the last two years of the term.

Hmmm, now, who could fit that bill …

Doug Wilder? Don’t see it happening. Wilder might tell Kaine that he would only do it for a couple of years to keep the seat warm, but, I mean, he’s Wilder.

Gerry Baliles is an interesting name. I like Dick Cranwell for the same reason. Two years in the Senate would be a nice way to cap a political career for either.

I don’t know that Mary Sue Terry would be interested, but she would sort of deserve something like this after what happened to her in ’93.

Chuck Robb? Sorry, his sunlight has long since faded.

I’m running out of names on my short list. If you have anybody in mind, feel free to share.

  

(Thanks to Jay Wyatt for the new Obama-Webb ’08 graphic. – C.G.)