For Obama, David Brooks has two suggestions:
Sam Nunn and Tom Daschle seem to fit the bill. Nunn is one of those senior Democrats (like David Boren and Bob Kerrey) who left the Senate lamenting the dumbed-down nature of modern politics. Daschle was more partisan as majority leader, but he is still widely trusted and universally liked. As experienced legislators, both could take Obama’s lofty hopes and translate them into nitty-gritty action.
I'm going to be writing something about Nunn soon, so stay tuned. But while I think it would be immensely reassuring to have his experience and wisdom in the number-two position, Obama might want something more on the politics-and-campaigning side.
I've been thinking for a while that Daschle would be problematic given that he voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war. We all know how Obama feels about that vote, and it seems awkward to choose a war supporter after mounting an entire campaign against the warped Beltway thinking behind it. On the other hand, a little Googling shows that Daschle did seem to wake up and smell the coffee just as the war began:
'I am saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war. Saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country.''
Nunn, by the way, famously voted against the first Gulf War, possibly at the cost of his 1992 presidential ambitions, and opposed this one as well....
--Michael Crowley