Pelosi suggests Chet Edwards for VP
By Jason Embry | Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 11:27 AM
A video that appeared on the Web this morning has a brief interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about who would be a good vice presidential candidate.
“Anyone that Barack Obama wants is my choice for vice president,” Pelosi told the interviewer, who appeared to be from Newsweek. “But I do think in the list of considerations there should be somebody from the House of Representatives and Chet Edwards is a person that many of us think would be a good person to be in the mix.”
She then went on to name a few of the usually mentioned candidates from the Senate.
Edwards, a Texas Democrat whose home is in Waco, is a very interesting idea. He chairs the subcommittee that doles out money for veterans’ facilities and could brag of last year’s record increase in funding. He also has strong defense credentials — he is much loved at Fort Hood, the world’s largest military installation, which he used to represent. There is a street there named after him. He endorsed Obama before the Texas primary.
On the flip side, he supported the war in Iraq and he’s somewhat unknown nationally, even though he’s been in the U.S. House since 1991 and was a state senator before that.
And here’s where it gets really interesting: He is President Bush’s local congressman. Would that help him or hurt him? It could show his appeal to Republicans, or people might want nothing to do with the president.
Given Obama’s words today about ‘Pelosi will be pleased with his V.P. choice’ and her expressed preference for Chet Edwards, this would be a surprise, he brings some military strength to the table to offset McCain and being a fresh face, he would have less baggage.