Who's the best VP choice for Obama?

Steven Stark ponders the question.

Inundated with stories in the past few weeks about the end of the Clinton campaign and the rise of Obama-mania, the press missed the development that is likely to have the strongest impact on the election: Barack Obama lost his best vice-president option when Ohio governor TED STRICKLAND removed himself from consideration for the number-two spot.

The importance of vice-president selections is always overrated. But in Obama’s case, it will have more importance than usual, since voters will use this first “presidential” decision to size up his approach to governing. And in a close election, the selection could prove critical. ...

With Strickland gone, Obama’s best choice is probably Pennsylvania governor ED RENDELL, 64, another Clinton supporter, as well as a former Philadelphia mayor and general chairman of the DNC. Pennsylvania doesn’t have quite the swing-state importance of Ohio, but Obama can’t afford to lose it, and Rendell might help in neighboring New Jersey, too, as well as among his fellow Jews. (Would some voters balk at a ticket of an African-American and a Jew? Maybe a few, but they wouldn’t be voting Democratic anyway.)