Fan Fare humbly suggests that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama considers a rank outsider to be his running mate in forthcoming elections — Bob Dylan.

As the world’s media ponders who Obama will pick as his vice presidential candidate, we’d like to throw the 67-year-old singer/songwriter/poet into the ring. He has a name that travels across borders, is a cultural icon (surely that overused word is justified in this case) and he could come up with a mean campaign song to rally the followers.

Dylan recently praised Obama for redrawing the U.S. political map. “Poverty is demoralising. You can’t expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor. But we’ve got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up…Barack Obama,” Dylan told the Times newspaper in a recent interview. ”He’s redefining what a politician is, so we’ll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I’m hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.”

Returning to the theme of that campaign song, how about something along the lines of “The Times, They Are A-Changin’”? Sorry, I couldn’t resist.