Obama campaign considers who will be his running mate
Though joint appearances by Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at a slew of recent fundraising events have reignited speculation that the presumptive Democratic nominee will name his former rival as his Vice Presidential running mate, former Clinton advisor Howard Wolfson said on Thursday that he does not believe his former boss is under formal consideration for the job.
“Not as far as I know,” Wolfson told Fox News yesterday when asked if Clinton had been “asked to participate in the vetting process for VP.”
While other possible Vice Presidential choices like Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd have been asked to turn over personal information about themselves as part of a formal vice presidential vetting process, no such requests have been made of Senator Clinton.
That said, some, including Wolfson, suggest that Hillary Clinton has already been vetted not only by her 18 month campaign for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination, but also by her more than three decades in public life which have been scrutinised ad nauseum by the media and right-wing conservative forces.
So far other potential Obama VP choices like Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill and Senator Joe Biden have directed inquiries about the Obama veepstakes directly to the Senator’s campaign.
Freshman Virginia Senator Jim Webb has already officially taken himself out of the running for the job.
As has Ohio governor Ted Strickland, a former Clinton advocate, who earlier this year responded to queries about the possibility of him becoming Obama’s VP by saying, “If drafted, I will not run; nominated, I will not accept; and if elected, I will not serve. So, I don’t know how more crystal clear I can be.”
Meanwhile, Senator Hillary Clinton described herself as playing Ginger Rogers to Barack Obama’s Fred Astaire on the campaign trail at a Women for Obama breakfast in New York this week.
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