Sebelius/Webb II: vis-+á-vis McGiuliani, Hagelberg, RomneyRice

  As we all await the delight of Hillary/sidekick being horsewhupped in 11/08 by Giuliani/McCain/whomever, I mention yet again an alternate, maybe optimum, Dem team: Kathleen Sebelius/Jim Webb.
  But first, for a little fun, and riffing off Andy "Card" getting booed at UM Amherst, here are some card references: given Sebelius' expertise with domestic administration (e.g, money) as 2-term Dem governor of Kansas, let's call her the Queen of Diamonds. (Anyone with Photoshop skills is welcome to do something with this idea, and the others!)
  Jim Webb, with his Navy Cross and killer attitude +á la "Bush, we will show you the way", we can legitimately call the Ace of Spades. (By comparison, the Queen of Spades might be Xena...or Valerie Plame!)
  Now what about Hillary? Queen of Clubs, natch.

  As for Repubs: Giuliani, call the Two of Hearts, not only for the Stacy Q song from the '80's, but also for his marrying his 2nd cousin and foolin' around with everyone else... 

  (more)
  Condo Rice--Queen of Hearts when next to the "George W. Bush" card (the Joker?).
  And ending somewhat prosaically, John McCain could be the Jack of Spades, with his military background, and "Jack" being another version of "John". If you want to call him the Joker too (after his visit to Baghdad...), I won't complain, though.

  --But enough "cardage" for now: let's get to some analysis,

A. The need for powerful P/VP combinations

  Actually, maybe the "playing card" meme is not all bad. Sebelius has domestic stuff, including trying to prevent Kansas from being Katrina 2, cf. Kagro, nailed down (cf. the diamond suit), and Webb has foreign policy/national security stuff nailed down (cf. the spade suit). So, put together, you have a powerful combination. (I know that in card ganes, you often want all of the same suit, but bear with me. --They should invent new card games where diversity, e.g., holding a hand with different suits, is rewarded, by the way.)
  Cards aside, the point is that you want a strong combination of people.

  Let's say, as for Repub combinations, that there's Giuliani/McCain. You have a domestically-strong person (at least for those who like graffiti artists beaten up to make a cleaner New York City), and a security-strong person (at least McCain was when he was a Navy pilot in a North Vietnamese prison). There's a combination for you.

  ...Hillary/Edwards, Edwards/Obama, Obama/Hillary. How much military experience do they have among them? ZERO. Is that going to be helpful in 2008??
  (Not to mention the lack of executive, e.g., gubernatorial/mayoral/military general, experience among the three Dems.)

  Sebelius/Webb is good on domestic AND foreign stuff, plus being gender-diverse, and geographically diverse, the Midwest (Kansas) plus the South (Virginia). (Nothing coastal besides Virginia, but the sea people, at least west of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line, will tend to vote Dem anyway.)
  I'm amenable to similar combinations, e.g., Schweitzer/Napolitano, although neither of those folks is a war hero to my knowledge, among other things.

  In any case, if we can't produce a powerful combo to deal with potential Repub combos, we're dead meat, likely enough.

B. Diversity, Hillary, and Condoleeza

  Part of combos is diversity, as implied above, so one should not discount that the Repubs will pull a Condo combo, i.e., putting Condoleeza Rice on the undercard.
  Don't laugh at this: some reports suggest she and Bob Gates at Defense are pushing diplomacy in the Mideast, plus troop withdrawal in 2008. Compared to Bush and Cheney, she could look like female African-American Henry Kissinger by next year, and be considered an asset to any ticket. Especially since she IS female and African American.

  This is a plus for having either Hillary or Obama on the ticket, or both, so that the Dems don't have their traditional "2 White Boyz Runnin Togetha" problem. However, Hillary is hated by millions of people; thus, another reason for Sebelius instead.
  (I don't mind Sebelius/Obama, by the way; see my linked diary on the topic below. However, Webb would be a better VP, since he has a Navy Cross medal but Barack never served in uniform.) 

C. Hagel/Bloomberg: uh oh

  Would a Chuck Hagel/Mike Bloomberg ticket help the Repubs or the Dems more? Maybe the Dems, since H/B are Repubs, so even if they ran as independents they would draw off a lot of the "Perot"-type vote. However, we can't be sure.
  For instance, let's say we have Hillary running, but also Hagel/Bloomberg, and Giuliani/whoever. I think the state of New York could be a real tossup, especially since much of upstate NY is Repub. (A tossup unless, say, Schumer or Spitzer were Hill's running mate...)
  Again, with the threat of Hagel in the race, it would be good to have at least one military hero on the Dem ticket to produce a powerful combo. Murtha may be seen as a little old, Patrick Murphy is a little young, and Clark seems out in the cornfield somewhere, so what you have left is "Ace of Spades" Jim Webb. Not a bad option, I think.

D. McGiulianiRomneyRice et al.

  I'm not going to spend much time comparing the leading Repub candidates. One or more of them have been written off at times, but fortune changes, i.e.,
  McCain looked bad in Baghdad and is distrusted by some fundamentalist types, but he is still a war hero;
  Giuliani likes to dress like women, and commit adultery with women, but there is always 9/11, and the fact that many voters seem to like a real brute;
  Romney flips and flops a lot, but many voters may forget about this, seeing his head of hair and his term as a red governor of a blue state (call him the "anti-Sebelius").

  --Rice we've covered already. No doubt Bush will always be willing to give her a good word, too.  :P

  (I may also address "Eye of" Newt Gingrich, Fred/Tommy Thompson, or "I Don't Heart" Huckabee in other diaries, if any of them becomes relevant.)

  In any case, all one needs to note is that with two "tough" executives, a war hero, and a high-profile black woman, the Repubs have some potentially powerful combos available, so if they "play their cards" right they could win the "poker game" in November '08. Will the Dems be as astute?
  I wonder.

E. Conclusion, and Memorial Day

  If you think after all this that you should call Sebelius and Webb 10 times a day until they agree to run, I won't complain. They'd offer a freshness that I'm concerned Al Gore might not offer. (And Bill Richardson would offer intelligence and racial diversity to a ticket, but has so many other problems I don't want to mention them.)
  And if we can't get something at least approaching the inherent merit of a Seb/Webb ticket, we could be in very serious trouble in 11/08.
  So on this Memorial Day weekend, think hard, and do what you can to discuss and encourage the optimum Democratic ticket possible, even if it includes people not running right now. The lives of our troops in Iraq, and many other things, may depend on it. Thank you!

("Archive": here's some of my earlier diaries on Sebelius and/or Webb,

"Sebelius, save us from Hillary!" or, Where the Women?,

Jim Webb: John Edwards + Navy Cross + Jack Bauer,

Sebelius elected to head Dem Governors group,

Sebelius/Obama '08: a natural choice,

Sebelius/Webb; one entertaining possibility for '08.)

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