Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, 63, of Arkansas. As NATO commander, Clark oversaw the allied air war against Serbia that toppled dictator Slobodan Milosevic. He also ran for the nomination in 2004 and won a primary in Oklahoma.

Downside: He had testy relations with other military officers that could come back to haunt him, and his political experience is thin.

Sen. Joe Biden, 65, of Delaware. With 36 years in the Senate and much of it spent on the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden has long experience in foreign policy circles. "He'd rather be secretary of state, but he'd accept it," said a Biden adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Downside: He may misspeak, a tendency he has.

Barack Obama is the Google of modern American politics.

MyBarackObama and Google share strengths and, perhaps, weaknesses.

I just described Google’s problem with the ASP loophole. By supporting the loophole Google maintains its proprietary advantage but risks losing friends in the open source community. This is a loss it can bear.

It can bear the loss because its immense infrastructure allows it independence from this kind of community pressure. It can act autonomously, in its own interest, when that interest conflicts with others’ ideology.

Barack Obama is doing essentially the same thing, as Marc Ambinder wrote on The Atlantic’s blog recently.

Google is Evil, from Scroogled and TechRepublic’s GeekEndOver at Hullaballoo, liberal blogger dday calls the result
“The Obama Party“:

He’s building a new Democratic infrastructure, regimenting it under his brand, and enlisting new technologies and more sophisticated voter contacting techniques to turn it from a normal Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort into a lasting movement.

The long-term goal is to subvert the traditional structures of the Democratic Party since the early 1990s, subvert the nascent structures that the progressive movement has been building since the late 1990s, and build a parallel structure, under his brand, that will become the new power center in American politics.

VoteVets screen capture from 2004 adJust as with Google and open source, Obama’s is not a bottom-up strategy, as Matt Stoller notes at OpenLeft. Stoller says Obama is deliberately isolating long-standing progressive groups like VoteVets (left, from one of their 2004 ads) and Progressive Media.

Unlike John McCain and Hillary Clinton, in other words, Barack Obama has not been doing calls with bloggers, or working hand-in-glove with groups like Moveon.org. He is building a first-class technical infrastructure that replaces everyone else’s and owes its loyalty strictly to him.

His sites are becoming Google-like in their power, and Google-like in their autonomy from the movements which spawned them.

Stoller worries this may prove to be a mistake:

When the Swift Boaters come back, and they will, it’s all on Obama and his movement to hit back. He’s betting that he can strip power from their base just as he stripped power from the old Washington way of doing politics within the Democratic Party.

Eric Schmidt and Barack Obama from 2007 Google interviewIn other words just as Google’s infrastructure allows it to act independently of the open source movement which it claims to champion, so Barack Obama’s infrastructure enables the same with regards the progressive movement he claims to champion.

What that portends I cannot say. What do you think it portends, in both cases?

It's so interesting none of u guys think he should take Clinton. Don't youj think the Obama-Clinton combination is a powerful front that will easily bring McCain to his knees? Especially considering the influence Bill is going to give to the voters. I really think this Obama guy is smart very smart. I ran into the following blog by Dana Blankenhorn & Paula Rooney titled The Obama Party and the Googlization of politics and think u guys will be interrested in reading this:

Clinton is one that would most likely help him dominate McCain, but she is almost completely the opposite of Obama. She doesn't represent change, and is the epitome of corruption in politics. I think it would be a desperate act for Obama to have to select Clinton as a running mate, and I think he will fairly easily defeat McCain in the election ( this coming from a conservative ).

If was in Obamas situation I don't think I could allow her to be my Vice President. I feel that she is the type of person who could / would set up an assassination so that she could be placed in that position. I know it's terrible to think of it that way, but I would much rather be safe then sorry.