With Richard Lugar’s name being mentioned lately as a long-shot contender to be Obama’s running mate, it’s worth examining the pros and cons of a bi-partisan unity ticket. If Obama were to select Lugar, he would get the foreign policy credentials and Washington experience that would also come with picking Joe Biden or Bill Richardson or Evan Bayh. But he would get something else that those three estimable Democrats couldn’t provide — a resounding reaffirmation of Obama’s central message and promise, i.e., that his campaign is about transcending the old politics and divisions in the country and building something new, less partisan, more hopeful and, most importantly, more effective. What better way to double down on that message than by choosing a member of the other to be his running mate?
There are plenty of arguments against doing it — most pointedly, the potential backlash among Democratic party regulars and committed progressives at the idea that the person a heartbeat away from the presidency in a Democratic White House could be a lifelong Republican with, in their view, an unsavory record on issues like abortion rights, gay rights, taxes, health care, the environment — you name it. And that’s probably a deal-breaker.
But if Obama wanted to make a truly big statement before the convention, he might want to risk alienating Democrats by picking a Republican running mate. And if he’d consider Dick Lugar, why not Nebraska’s retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel? In addition to having turned strongly against the Iraq war and having traveled with Obama to Iraq last month, Hagel is, like John McCain, a Vietnam vet with a compelling story of combat heroism (his own body on fire, Hagel pulled his brother Tom from a burning APC that had been struck by a mine). After returning from the war, he served for a year as deputy in Reagan’s Veterans’ Affairs administration, then made a fortune in the fledging celluar phone business. His voting record in the Senate is to the right of Lugar’s, but he’d be much more likely to be an effectively aggressive, attacking running mate than would the gentlemanly senior senator from Indiana.
Back in 2004, Bush operatives worried that if John Kerry could persuade John McCain to run on a unity ticket, the president would lose his re-election bid. It probably won’t happen this year, either. But if it did, says a well-connected Democratic operative and fundraiser, “it could seal an Obama win.”