John Edwards for VP? There Should Be No Sequel This Time.

[David Zephyr]

I hope that this time it won't be deja vu all over again when it comes to who Senator Barack Obama picks to be his running mate. I am referring to the recent floating of John Edwards' name once again to be the Vice Presidential nominee. Nothing could be worse.

If Al Gore and John Kerry could somehow hop into Professor Peabody's "Way Back Machine" and re-visit their campaigns in 2000 and 2004, you can be sure that they would both have changed who they chose to be their running mates. The top of the tickets were sterling in both campaigns, but the bottom of those tickets -- Lieberman and Edwards --- were boat anchors.

Just a few reminders:

John Edwards did not just vote for the Iraqi War Resolution, he was one of only 16 co-sponsors of Joe Lieberman's Senate Iraqi War Resolution. Who were the other 15? Here's a few of the guilty:

John McCain, Pete Domenici, Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Wayne Allard, Mitch McConnell, John Warner, Tim Hutchinson, Zel Miller, Louisiana's petroleum puppets John Breaux and Mary Landrieu, and, of course, Joe Lieberman. Great company for John Edwards, huh?

John Edwards could not even deliver his home state of North Carolina to John Kerry's finally tally in 2004 and did not deliver one single southern state to Kerry either. So much for his "pull" with conservative southern white men. If there's still any logic left at all (I don't think there is) to pandering to southern white conservative men, then at the very least, the product choice of John Edwards has already been field tested and did not market well there. In fact, he bombed. Factoid: John Edwards did not even deliver his own hometown in North Carolina in 2004. How weak is that?

John Edwards showed himself not to be the "team player" that he promised to be before signing on as Kerry's running mate in 2000. Indeed, Edwards fought with the Kerry campaign and the campaign ended with bad blood between Kerry and Edwards.

No one would know this better than Obama's current chief strategist, David Axelrod...because Axelrod worked for Edwards in 2004. The New York Times wrote that Axelrod pointed to Edwards as one of the reasons the Kerry campaign failed: "I have a whole lot of respect for John, but at some point the candidate has to close the deal and — I can’t tell you why — that never happened with John.”

If winning in 2008 is important to Democrats, then we can not entertain any notion of repeating past errors. There should be no sequel with John Edwards on the marquee alongside the name of Barack Obama in November.