I usually don’t pick on a journalist like this, unless it’s Fox News, but this one’s so sloppy, I can’t help myself.
Helen Kennedy had an item in Sunday’s New York Daily News speculating about potential running mates for Howard Dean, should he get the Dem nomination. The problem was one of these possibilities is almost certain not to happen.
The article ran through five potential picks that are already widely known, including Bob Graham and Bill Richardson. But the same article included former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland as a strong possibility.
In politics, I guess you never say never, but I think Dean would sooner pick me than pick Cleland and Helen Kennedy ought to know better.
It’s not that Cleland wouldn’t make a fine running mate; he would. He’s a likeable and intelligent leader from a key southern state. He also lost three limbs in Vietnam. Though he’s no longer in the Senate, Cleland is currently on the independent commission investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The point is Dean would never pick him. After all, just last month, Cleland, who has endorsed John Kerry, said the party shouldn’t nominate Dean.
“We cannot afford to have a leader who weaseled out of going to Vietnam on a medical deferment for a bad back and wound up on the ski slopes of Aspen like Howard Dean,” Cleland said in November.
Even if Dean isn’t the type to hold a grudge, which I think he is, a comment like this would probably get a guy removed from a shortlist, don’t you think?