Opinion: Stash those Barack Obama/Ann Veneman buttons
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Perhaps the most improbable pairing to emerge so far in the vice presidential guessing game -- the bizarre prospect floated in recent days that Barack Obama would tap former Bush administration Cabinet member Ann Veneman as his running mate -- apparently can be put out to a well-deserved pasture.
The Fresno Bee -- dutifully following up on a recent, and utterly hard-to-fathom, report that Veneman (raised in nearby Modesto) was a possibility for the second spot on Obama’s ticket -- has thrown cold water on a matchup that never was going to happen anyway.
Michael Doyle blogs for the Bee that a spokesman for UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency Veneman has headed since 2005, informed him that she ‘has not been contacted by the [Obama] campaign and is solely focused on her current travels.’
Veneman was in Africa when Politico.com posted a story Friday evening reporting that, according to two anonymous Democrats, Obama’s veep vetters had bandied her name about on Capitol Hill.
The piece insisted that Veneman ‘has a biography that could be suited to Obama’s unifying message. A Republican raised on a California peach farm, she rose to become the nation’s first female agriculture secretary. In 2002 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which was treated successfully.’
A brief buzz resulted -- mainly the sound of progressives gnashing their teeth.
The Nation, for instance, termed Veneman a ‘uniquely awful choice’ for Obama. Among the most basic problems, the magazine noted, was that the onetime corporate lawyer ‘was known to organized labor as one the most militant advocates for free trade in a militantly pro-free trade Bush administration.’
There also is the small matter of the lack of any discernible asset Veneman would have offered to allay concerns some have about Obama’s readiness for the White House.
To return to reality, the hardening consensus among pundits as Obama’s choice nears is that it will be one of these three (listed alphabetically): Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, or Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.
-- Don Frederick