Opinion: Ticket Takings: A Sunday full of Richardson, Webb, Daschle, Fiorina and Richardson

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O.K., it’s the first day of summer. There’s still something like 134 days until The Election. No tornadoes in sight. The annual hurricane controversies have yet to form wherever they start. Lots of lakes and sunshine outdoors. And blizzards of blabber on TV.

Hope the traffic wasn’t too bad getting home. Here’s a reverse birthday gift from The Ticket: What you didn’t miss today:

SO MUCH FOR SUMMER IN MONTANA: Tom Brokaw will pause in writing his next book on our grandfathers and take over moderating ‘Meet the Press’ through the election. Not Tim Russert, of course, but wise and he won’t talk about the Bills who are hopeless until poor Jim Kelly returns. (See video below.)

If NBC is not going the blonde-in-short-skirt route like over at Fox and since Bob Schieffer is under contract elsewhere, our top permanent nominee is Chuck Todd, (not pictured here) who clearly knows everything about politics and says it succinctly. Seriously.

WHY NOT JUST ARM EVERYBODY ON AIRPLANES? Our blogging colleague James Oliphant over at the Swamp has joined the periodic chorus wondering about Virginia Sen. James Webb as the running mate for Barack Obama.

Webb, you’ll remember, is the guy who packs personal heat everywhere, which does tend to diminish disagreements on the street. Obama does need a military mate because he’s talked so much about opposing war and the simple peacemaking power of sitdowns with dictators. Also, he seems unlikely to pick Geraldine Ferraro.

Being a turncoat Republican and former Reaganite will surely....

...make Webb particularly attractive to the DailyKos crowd. Or maybe with his impressive almost presidential new Grand Seal, Obama doesn’t need them anymore.

TASTES GREAT. NO, IT’S LESS FILLING: Our good buddy Damien LaVera over at the Democratic National Committee obviously didn’t hit the beach today. He’s out with another ‘tip’ about a media story to help spread dissension among Republicans and undermine John McCain’s case.

SPEAKING OF POSSIBLE VP’S: The Saudis have said they’re gonna increase oil production, which is supposed to help the world price. But if you think about it, at these prices it will also help the charitable Saudis, won’t it?

Anyway, because it’s a major international economic story, the partially-bearded Wolf Blitzer at CNN naturally turns for answers to the governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty. Hey, it made sense in the weekend planning meeting.

Pawlenty goes way out on a limb and tells the world ‘it’s relatively good news.’ News Alert! Next question, of course: The VP thing. No, Tim-bo says, he hasn’t talked about it with McCain. (Or presumably with Rep. Ron Paul either.)

Pawlenty says he talks with McCain only about family and sports. So maybe he would make a good irrelevant VP pick after all. How about those D-backs and Twins?

JAMES CARVILLE MUST HAVE BEEN BUSY: Also on CNN, Wolfie interviewed convicted Obama supporter Robert Reich for his unbiased views on the Saudi oil decision. True to his political media training, Reich took only three sentences to get around to Obama’s energy platform, which he said stresses wind and solar energy. Those’ll be interesting-looking cars.

AND NOW FOR THE OTHER SIDE: To keep it fair, Blitzer’s Late Edition also interviewed another unbiased observer, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who took only seven words to blame the Bush administration for the good news about Saudi oil production increases (See, they should have done it much earlier).

SAY WHAT? Over on Fox News Sunday, they only got an ex-senator on. And Democrat Tom Daschle made an amazing point to Chris Wallace. If the military surge is really doing so well, Daschle says, then as Sen. Obama points out with his immediate troop withdrawal plan, why do we need the U.S. troops there?

Think about that a minute.

THIS GUY GETS AROUND: Over at CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ Gov. Richardson (wait a minute, how’d he get on two Sunday TV shows without a carbon-emitting automobile?) suggests that McCain would be like a third Bush term. Which accidentally reveals that Richardson has never seen the body language in private between those two eternal rivals.

Then, McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina talks about the off-shore drilling situation and Obama now bashing tax breaks for the big oil companies.

‘Well, first of all,’ she says, ‘John McCain believes it is the state’s decision. Secondly, the 2005 energy bill which gave oil companies lots of breaks -- Barack Obama voted for it. John McCain voted against it.”

Oh, ouch!

So, as you can see, your day outdoors caused you to miss lots of significant Sunday political news. Glad The Ticket could catch you up so quickly.

Bonus points: This isn’t political yet, butour blogging colleague Tony Pierce is trying to start another fight over on the new Comments blog. Maybe you heard about Saturday’s horrific drag racing crash in New Jersey? Pierce has the video and asks how to make the sport safer?

As ex-Sen. Daschle might suggest: That’s simple. Go slower.

--Andrew Malcolm