I'd been meaning to write about this for a few days, but I read this post by Nate over at fivethirtyeight about Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer as Obama's VP and found it enormously persuasive. Like, "Obama has totally got to pick this guy" persuasive. Of course I had been familiar with Schweitzer earlier--I had seen him on Colbert a year ago and found him a compelling politician. Picture Mike Huckabee minus the extreme reactionary views and the Catholic animus toward him, and you're looking at Schweitzer. They're both folksy talkers from smallish states where they ran quite effective statehouses and both became really popular. Both have the humor thing going on, and both seem to be able to just talk to people.
Schweitzer, though, is superior to Huckabee because Schweitzer knows policy and Huckabee does not. I predicted Huckabee would capture the GOP nomination, and he came damn close to doing so, despite having the entire GOP establishment arrayed against him. Had 2% of the population of South Carolina that supported McCain voted for Huck instead, I'm positive he would have won the nomination. Now, he would have been a total disaster, but I had a grudging respect for Huckabee because he had a tendency of saying things that were entirely too reasonable, such as that religious right leaders who supported Rudy Giuliani despite his many infidelities owed an apology to Bill Clinton.
Anyway, that's neither here nor there. The post notes that Schweitzer is an expert on energy policy, has executive experience, and spent time in the Middle East (he even speaks Arabic!). Not only that, but Montana might well be competitive in this election cycle, and Schweitzer might just help Obama seal the deal there. That's six safe GOP electoral votes for McCain to make up elsewhere--three added to the Dem column and three taken away from the GOP column. Plus, he's a populist reformer whose style might well mesh with Obama's. He's got a reputation as being a conservative Democrat, but aside from guns he doesn't seem to have anything too unacceptable. Even in conservative Montana a pro-choice politician can run the state. Weird, I guess. His support for liquid coal-to-oil might give environmentalists pause since Obama's been singing the same tune. That could be a problem, though Schweitzer is generally pretty green.
I suppose the main problem is that Schweitzer is largely unknown, and McCain's campaign would ramp up the experience attack. Maybe that would work (though it didn't work for Hillary Clinton) but putting together two fresh faces for new leadership does reinforce Obama's message, and I get the sense that Schweitzer would become a media darling. He's so funny. So you can sign me up as a proponent of this idea now, since Edwards does appear to sincerely not want the VP slot again.
