So, John Edwards, our next Vice-President. Rather an uninspired pick, but then, that's what I thought about Al Gore in 1992.

I saw Edwards speak in the run-up to Wisconsin's primary back in February. For a very brief period I was considering voting for Edwards over Howard Dean, because I didn't want John Kerry to just run away with the nomination in an orgy of "electability." It quickly became clear, though, that Edwards wasn't going to close on Kerry and I should vote my conscience. The worst thing I can say about Edwards is this: His speech did nothing to sway my vote. During the primary season, James Carville said Edwards was the best speaker he'd ever seen, better even than Bill Clinton. Somebody else, and I want to say it was Josh Marshall but I'm not sure, said an Edwards speech was like Chinese food: It tastes great and fills you up at the time, but half an hour later you're wondering why you ever felt so full. I tend to agree with the latter assessment. Edwards's "Two Americas" has a nice sound to it, and is very Clintonian. Step one in emulating Bill Clinton is to display more empathy than the other guys, and that's just what "Two Americas" does. But after I left the speech, I wasn't really sure that Edwards was more than a lilting accent and a haircut -- which isn't to say that he's substanceless, just that I didn't get any substance from his speech. To be honest, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, who endorsed and introduced Edwards, spoke in more substantive terms.

Part of this is Edwards shifting himself from legislative to executive work. His career as a Senator is over. Even if he hadn't run for President and wasn't now running for VP, he would not have been re-elected to the Senate. He's going to spend the rest of his career as a Presidential candidate, a Vice-President, a President or one of those in the former. 21st century America likes slogans from its executives, and it loves a clever framing device like "Two Americas." Look at any major Bill Clinton speech and you'll see a similar method at work.

So is Edwards ready for the Presidency? Probably not, at least not the in way that more experienced Democrats like Kerry, Dean or Dick Gephardt are -- and I'm talking about readiness in terms of being able to perform the duties of the office effectively, not in policy terms. He's certainly more ready than George Bush was four years ago, and probably more ready than Bush is now. After eight years as VP (or, pessimistically, four years as VP and four more as former VP), Edwards certainly will be ready, and I think this selection all but destroys the Presidential ambitions of Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean in 2012.

I'll be posting more on this in the next few days as I think over the various implications. First: how does soft-spoken Edwards match up against Cheney in a debate setting? What advantages does he have more aggressive debaters like Dean, Gephardt and Wes Clark?

(Oh, and lest anyone this I'm trying to bash Edwards with the title of this post, it's a humorous reference to this and this.)