(Posted by Donna Smith)

There’s a little bit of Dick Cheney in every potential vice presidential choice of Republican presidential candidate John McCain. At least that’s how the Democratic National Committee sees it. The DNC on Tuesday launched a new Internet site to drive home that point — www.TheNextCheney.com.

The Web site features an initial list of seven potential vice presidential choices for the presumptive Republican nominee and tries to tie them to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who suffer from low approval ratings in public opinion polls.

“After lamenting the missed opportunity to make Dick Cheney his own vice president in 2001, McCain will have a chance very soon to choose his own Dick Cheney and we think its important that the American people have all the facts at their fingertips,” DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a conference call with reporters.

Woodhouse promises more information about the current Republican vice presidential possibilities and anyone else who might make it onto McCain’s list.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.  - John McCain may not be giving any clues about who he wants as his No. 2, but the Republican presidential candidate does have a few ideas about how to choose. 

Rule one: Do no harm. 

“First, you want to make sure you have a candidate that’s not going to hurt the ticket,” the Arizona senator told a fundraising event webcast to American citizens in Bermuda.

“The second thing is, and I think it’s the key criteria, is it someone who shares your principles, your values, your philosophy and your priorities? Hardest thing for the president is to establish priorities.”

McCain said his list was full of good candidates. See if you can guess who he’s referring to here:

“There’s so many highly qualified people in our party, ranging - and I won’t mention names - ranging from people who have been stalwarts in our party for a long time, great governors and senators and businesspeople,” he said.

Fill in the blanks, folks. But don’t expect a timetable. McCain declined to identify a deadline for his decision.

“I will announce it just as soon as the process is completed, but it won’t be driven by any other factors — the Olympics or the Democratic convention or any other.  It will be strictly on when we can arrive at a conclusion,” he said on CNN.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Republican presidential candidate John McCain speaks at a campaign picnic last week outside the Maine Military Museum in South Portland)

ALBUQUERQUE - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Tuesday his search for a vice presidential running mate is proving difficult because he has many qualified candidates.

A host of high-profile names have been circulating for weeks who McCain might be considering for vice president, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

At a town hall meeting in Albuquerque, McCain specifically took a question from a youngster described as a reporter, and the youth asked him about his vice presidential search.

McCain said the search “is somewhat difficult because we have so many highly qualified individuals” to consider.

He gave no names. But he said he was operating under a specific timeline that he hopes to meet “well before.”

McCain has said he wants to announce his choice before the Republican nominating convention in St. Paul in early September.

He has given few clues as to who he might pick, but McCain told a fund-raising event in Albuquerque on Monday night that he and Romney, who McCain defeated in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, have become good friends.

It was only a few months ago when the two were at each other’s throat in the often-acrimonious campaign.

“Mitt and Ann Romney and Cindy and I have become good friends,” he said in describing how he feels the Republican Party is united now for the battle against Barack Obama for the Nov. 4 election.

In fact, he said, based on Romney’s television appearances on McCain’s behalf, “He does a better job for me than he did for himself, as a matter of fact.”

He also praised other Republican one-time rivals Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani.

Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking (McCain, Romney at a meeting March 27)

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

NEW YORK - White House hopeful Barack Obama had reporters in his entourage wondering on Wednesday if his search for a vice presidential running mate is intensifying.

While in Washington for some Senate votes, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee dropped by a Pennsylvania Avenue office building for some meetings but the campaign would not say what they were about.

The building happened to be the same one where former U.S. deputy attorney general Eric Holder works. Holder and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of slain U.S. president John F. Kennedy, are heading up Obama’s search for a No. 2.

The meetings were important enough that the Illinois senator was accompanied by his campaign manager, David Plouffe and his top campaign strategist, David Axelrod.

Obama is keeping his search close to the vest.

Pressed on what type of person he is looking for, Obama told ABC’s Good Morning America he wants “somebody with integrity” and who could competently serve as president and offer him “unvarnished advice.”

“Beyond that I haven’t talked about our vice presidential process, and I’m not going to until we actually select my choice as vice presidential nominee,” Obama said.

But Obama further stoked the curiosity of reporters when Caroline Kennedy and his former Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton joined him on a flight Wednesday evening en route to some fundraisers in New York.

Clinton is among a list of many people Obama will consider as a running mate, although some pundits think her chances of being offered the role are not very high.

But Obama is determined to try to heal the rift that opened in the party during the hard-fought primary battle. At a fundraiser with 1,000 of his supporters, he made a plea for the donors to contribute money to Clinton to help her retire the millions in debt she accumulated during the primary. But he made a small faux pas in initially forgetting to publicly call attention to the pledge sheets that had been set out on the donors’ chairs to encourage them to give money to Clinton.

After Obama spoke for 35 minutes about his aims in running for president, the Stevie Wonder song “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” blared over the loud speakers to signal he had concluded his remarks.

A minute or two later, he returned to the microphone.

“Hold on a second guys,” Obama said. “I was getting a little carried away. I’ve got one more thing that is important too.”

He made a pitch for the donors to fill out the pledge sheets for Clinton, saying it was “part of the process of making sure that we are unified moving forward.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Segar (Obama with Sen. Edward Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy in a February rally in New Jersey)

WASHINGTON - Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to think so. But she is touting Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, not former presidential candidate John Edwards who twice ran for president and was the Democrats vice presidential candidate in 2004.

For the past few weeks, Pelosi, who will chair the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August, has been talking up the nine-term congressman from central Texas as a possible running-mate for Barack Obama.

She floated the idea to Obama’s vice presidential search team a few weeks ago and again on Tuesday more publicly, at a breakfast with a group of reporters.

“I’ve had no conversations with the Obama campaign,” Edwards told Reuters on Capitol Hill. But he added that he was “humbled” that Pelosi would suggest him and left the door open to the possibility.

Edwards is known on Capitol Hill as an articulate centrist Democrat with a proven ability to win in a congressional district with a Republican tilt. His work on expanding veterans’ health and education benefits and his southern, fiscal conservative credentials could also help round out a ticket headed by a man seen as a liberal northerner.

For those who think Obama needs a foreign policy/national security expert to fill in the gaps in the presidential candidate’s resume, Edwards could pale compared to other names floating around, including Sen. Joe Biden, retired Gen. Wes Clark, former Sen. Sam Nunn and Sen. Jack Reed.

But the congressman might have a leg up on the competition in at least one other area, he would do Obama proud in a sport that is traditionally favored by presidents and vice presidents. As a youngster, Edwards was an avid, accomplished golfer.  

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Kevin Lamarque (Pelosi on Capitol Hill in May)

WASHINGTON - Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are often described by many in the party as the dream team to recapture the White House in 2008 regardless who is atop the ticket. 

Clinton, whose presidential bid has been faltering in recent weeks, had previously hinted that she was open to the idea.  And now as Obama closes in on winning the party’s presidential nomination, he has not closed the door on Clinton as his vice presidential running mate.

If Clinton fails to mount a come-from-behind win, will her supporters be satisfied with the No. 2 spot and will Obama’s backers fear that she could hurt his chances of capturing the White House or possibly upstage him?

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

WASHINGTON — Speculation about who would make a good vice presidential running mate for Republican John McCain ranges all the way from party also-rans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney to Democrat Bill Richardson. But a new Gallup survey shows the largest bloc of rank-and-file Republicans — 31 percent — are those who cannot name a candidate for the job.

The next biggest group, 21 percent, prefer the choice marked “other.”

Huckabee and Romney, who were both defeated by McCain in the Republican presidential primary race, led the pack of named choices with 18 percent and 15 percent, respectively, in the telephone survey conducted March 24-27.

Some 8 percent of 453 Republicans and Republican-leaning voters polled would like to see Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as vice president.

She was followed by the “no opinion” category which drew 5 percentage points.

Then came three other former Republican hopefuls: Fred Thompson with 4 percent; and Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani with 2 percent apiece.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who has appeared at campaign events with McCain, also got 2 percent.

Former Democratic presidential hopefuls John Edwards and Bill Richardson each drew 1 percent.

Gallup said the results have a 6 percentage-point error margin.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed (McCain speaks at the Naval Academy in Annapolis on April 2)