Andrew Romano / July 2, 2008
In which Stumper examines the Democratic nominee's possible--and not-so-possible--vice-presidential picks. (Previous McCain installments: Bobby Jindal; Mitt Romney; Charlie Crist; Tim Pawlenty; Rob Portman. Previous Obama installments: Ted Strickland; Jim Webb; Wes Clark; Hillary Clinton.)
Name: Kathleen Sebelius
Age: 60
Education: Trinity Washington University, University of Kansas (Master of Public Administration)
Resume: Former four-term Kansas state representative, former Kansas insurance commissioner, current two-term Kansas governor
Source of Speculation: Obama himself. Speaking to the FOX affiliate in Missouri on Monday, the Democratic nominee was effusive--to put in mildly--in his praise for Sebelius. "I love Kathleen Sebelius," he said. "I think she is as talented a public official as there is right now. Integrity. Competence. She can work with all people of all walks of life." At which point the Illinois senator stopped himself, sensing, it seemed, that he'd gone too far. "But I promised that I am not going to say anything about my vice president," he added, "until I actually introduce my vice president." The blogosphere, of course, called this a "hint."
Backstory: Hint or not, the Great Mentioner has been mentioning Sebelius as potential White House material at least since 2004--and not only as vice president. After John Kerry's bruising loss, observers started to speculate about a 2008 presidential bid, and two years later the White House Project cited Sebelius as one of eight plausible female candidates for the upcoming election. Ultimately, only one of those pols--Hillary Clinton--actually entered the ring, which pretty much prevented Sebelius from even considering a campaign of her own. But the veep buzz began immediately. By April 2006, "rumors of her potential place on the 2008 Democratic Presidential ticket as a Vice Presidential nominee [were already] flying." Less than two years later, she was chosen by Congressional leaders to deliver the official Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2008 State of Union address--a sure sign of her rising-star status within the party. The next day, Sebelius endorsed Obama, and her stock rose as he marched to the nomination. By May, the Washington Post was listing her as Obama's top veep prospect. For her part, Sebelius has only stoked the flames, cleverly highlighting the strength she would bring to the ticket by referring to herself as an "Ohio girl" and praising Obama's "Kansas values" earlier this month. But more on that in a minute.
The odds: Strong, but far from a sure thing. In 1992, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton defied the conventional wisdom and chose Al Gore as his running mate. The point wasn't balance or geographical gain. Like Clinton--who would have won Tennessee without a Volunteer State senator on his ticket--Gore was a white, Southern, baby boomer centrist without a whole lot of foreign-policy expertise on his CV. Instead, Clinton was aiming to double-down on his core message of forward-looking, generational change--and Gore reinforced the theme. Sebelius is this year's Gore. She's hardly the "old white pro" that the chatterati say Obama must choose, and there's no chance she'll deliver Kansas, where Bush won by 25 percent in 2004 and McCain currently leads by at least 12. But she'd probably do more to reinforce the core rationale of Obama's candidacy--you know, the whole "change through post-partisan unity" spiel--than any other contender. Plus she'd add a dose of much-needed executive experience to the mix.
Here's the pitch. Superficially, Sebelius screams "change." She is, of course, a woman, which would automatically add to the historic weight of Obama's ticket, generate a ton of positive coverage and possibly appeal to Hillary holdouts. A Democrat, she was twice elected governor--first by eight points, then by 17--of a deeply Republican state, where she still enjoys a 62 percent approval rating. Her popularity and electoral success in a region where Democrats need to do better nicely echoes Obama's pledge to transform the map in the fall, sending a signal that Democrats are serious about competing for Republican votes. Added bonuses: a Catholic, Sebelius grew up in the Buckeye State as the daughter of fondly remembered former Governor John Gilligan. And who better than the governor of Kansas--where Obama's mother was born and raised--to reinforce the heartland side of Obama’s heritage?
Ultimately, though, Sebelius's main selling point is substantive: of all Obama's veep prospects, she has by far the strongest record of actually practicing the sort of post-partisan politics that the nominee is so fond of preaching. To win in Kansas in 2002--a state where Republican and unaffiliated voters outnumber Democrats nearly three to one--Sebelius tapped retired Cessna executive John Moore, a registered Republican, to run as her lieutenant governor, and by 2006, she'd convinced the former chairman of the state Republican Party, Mark Parkinson, to switch parties and take over the job. (She also converted the state attorney general--among others.) As governor, Sebelius has pulled off the near-impossible trick of reaching across the aisle to harness legislative consensus for her bread-and-butter agenda without compromising her progressive ideals--long thought anathema to Kansans--or sacrificing her popularity. In 2005, for example, she recruited a slim majority of lawmakers to support an additional $500 million in school funding, and more recently convinced the legislature to uphold her environmentally-motivated veto of a bill green-lighting the construction of carbon-belching coal plants--"a stance," says the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, "that a decade ago would have amounted to political suicide." Meanwhile, Sebelius has risked her skin by opposing the death penalty, vetoing numerous measures meant to restrict abortion access and repeatedly confronting President Bush--and lived to tell the tale. This is precisely the blend of competence, consensus and toughness that Obama is seeking to achieve as president. He could do worse than to choose a partner who's proven that she can walk the walk.
Sebelius, of course, is not without her drawbacks. Although the prospect of a putting a woman in White House would excite some Clintonites, others would see another female cutting ahead of Hillary in line for the Oval Office as an unconscionable insult, and the choice could end up further dividing Democrats. Compared to McCain, Obama's most obvious weakness is the relative thinness of his resume--particularly on matters of foreign policy--so picking a partner with even less national-security cred could be risky. After her State of Union rebuttal bombed--"The speech was vague and fuzzy, the delivery nervous and halting," Ezra Klein has written--some insiders concluded that she wasn't polished enough for the national stage. Despite the fact the Sebelius is personally pro-life and has presided over an 8.5 percent drop in abortions as governor, her staunch opposition to statewide anti-abortion measures has already earned her some flack from conservatives, who would seek to make abortion a wedge issue were she to join Obama's ticket. Finally--and most controversially--the image of Sebelius and Obama side-by-side might make some Americans, well, uncomfortable. "She's a bit older than Obama, but not old enough to be maternal," a Democratic operative with ties to organized labor told New York magazine's John Heilemann earlier this week. "And she is quite attractive. They'd look too much like a couple together. [Putting her on the ticket] would risk evoking on a subconscious level every American trope about miscegenation — a recurrent, threatening theme throughout our cultural and political history... And that's exactly the kind of anxiety you do not want to raise in white working-class men — the fear that this handsome, charismatic black guy is after their women.”
Incendiary, yes. Impossible to prove, absolutely. But crazy? Maybe not. One thing's for sure: Obamas team is too savvy and too calculating not to take this kind of consideration seriously. Ultimately, there's little doubt that Sebelius represents "change." The question for Obama may be whether she represents too much.
