Obama Wants Nunn of Edwards

Last updated on July 1st, 2012 at 07:05 am

ImageIn some recent developments, it has been announced that the Obama campaign is considering both former Senators Sam Nunn (Georgia) and John Edwards (North Carolina) as viable vice presidential running mates. The leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (Michigan) verified to several news sources that when she met with the Obama VP search team on Wednesday morning, she forwarded the names of Edwards and Nunn. Kilpatrick said that, “[w]e’ve been brainstorming in the Congressional Black Caucus. Former Senator Sam Nunn’s name has come up, as well as John Edwards’.”

Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, the two remaining members of Obama’s VP search team confirmed later that the two were definitely on the list of potential running mates. More interestingly, Kennedy and Holder put some names on the table that were already under consideration by the Obama camp. Even when pressed, Kilpatrick would not reveal whose names were mentioned by the team.

Kilpatrick did elaborate that besides Nunn and Edwards, she did propose a few others, “including former Vice President Al Gore, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland.” She continued, “I asked them what type of person the senator is looking for? And they said in general someone who could help him rebuild the country … talking about change. How we reinvest in America, get people back to work and reinforce our education system and bring the jobs back.”

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I must say, that is a mighty fine set of criteria for a vice president as many of those principles are not only foundational to the Obama campaign, but ultra topical to the ordinary American citizen. After seven years of wasteful spending and funneling public monies to personal friends, cronies and supporters, the country really needs to take a step back and evaluate how to best reinvest public monies into public necessities.

Obama may have been figurative when he set up the parameter of “help him rebuild the country,” but there is a real-life truth, a literal need for rebuilding this great nation. Our infrastructure (highways, sewage, plumbing, federal buildings, including VA hospitals, bridges and damns and levies) is absolutely falling apart, and it is something that Bush and the current conservative stranglehold over government has opposed and vetoed again and again. Apparently, money for Blackwater USA and Halliburton is fine, but money for Veterans and a new-centruy GI bill, as well as children’s health insurance is beyond taboo.

If rebuilding America and helping Obama with actuating real, tangible change to this nation in terms of culture, philosophy and practice, then people like Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Tom Daschle and Sam Nunn may not be the front runners on that list. If Obama is truly after what Kilpatrick revealed, then John Edwards (poverty and labor) and Al Gore (environment) would be ideal candidates because they have both garnered vast recognition for causes beyond the Washington practicum.


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