I know it's just gossipy silliness, so I try to resist indulging in speculation about vice-presidential candidates for as long as I can. Alas, as long as I can turns out to be not very long. About as long as ... well, until right now.

Let's go down the list:

Hillary Clinton. No way. I thought the Obama-Clinton "unity ticket" was a dubious idea even when it looked like Obama might need Clinton's support. Now that it looks like he doesn't, it makes no sense at all. The two were never going to get along well in any case. Partnerships like that only work when neither side is in command and each needs the other.

John Edwards. Nope, not buying this either. Edwards already ran for vice-president once. I don't think he wants to again. Yes, he's a proven campaigner, but I don't think Edwards helps with any voter demographic Obama can't chase on his own or with someone else. Also -- and I probably shouldn't even mention this because it's the sort of shallow image strategizing that I hate -- but I think Obama-Edwards is vulnerable on the pansy issue.

Democrats like to imagine that we've already seen all the attacks that will come out against Obama, but of course we haven't. The Republicans have barely attacked him at all. All we've really seen are the lines of attack that Clinton was willing to use, leaving alone the ones that were too nasty even for her and those that she isn't well-positioned to make use of. An example of the former is the Muslim angle, which is way more serious than my most of my fellow Democrats have yet acknowledged, with their smug, "omigod, can you believe some ignorant people actually believe that?" An example of the latter is the insinuation that Obama isn't very manly.

Obama is a handsome and charismatic man, but he's attractive in a way that's svelte and metrosexual. I'm not saying Obama has to act macho, nor pick a macho running-mate, but it's a vulnerability, and I think it's a bad idea to choose someone with the same vulnerability. Edwards has already been attacked from the right for being a pretty boy. Put them together and I think you have an image problem for the party ticket.

Al Gore. Ridiculous. People only mention him because he's a familiar name. An Obama-Gore ticket makes no sense at all.

Bill Richardson. Yeah, OK, I can see that. A safe, sensible pick. Given that the Democratic nominee is still a strong favorite in the general election, maybe safe and sensible is the way to go.

Evan Bayh. Aha, now here's one that makes sense. If I had to put money on just one name to predict, I'd probably go with Bayh.

I think this is the true "unity ticket". The story goes something like this: Clinton knows that she's not going to be picked as running-mate, but she'd like the dignity of being "asked". More important, her entire faction of the party wants an indication that they are being included, not excluded. Obama is fine with this, so long as there's no danger of Clinton actually accepting the "offer" and creating an awkward situation. So both teams put out the appropriate signals to reassure the other. Obama then asks Clinton for advice on completing the ticket. This is not public per se, but of course it leaks out. Clinton magnanimously says it should not be her, and she recommends Evan Bayh.

Bayh makes sense for a lot of reasons on his own: he has a great resume, is very telegenic, and seems to be scandal-free. But he's been a big supporter of Clinton throughout the primary. This offers a further opportunity of a unifying gesture. By playing it the right way, Bayh can be framed as Clinton's favorite from among the short list, so then when Bayh is picked it will be like the Obama campaign is reaching out to the Clinton faction.

One potential argument against Obama-Bayh is that it isn't geographically diverse, Illinois and Indiana being next-door neighbors. I don't buy that. Geographic diversity is overrated. It didn't hurt Clinton and Gore to be from neighboring states. Indiana is a state that could potentially be tipped from Republican to Democrat by virtue of the pick, and arguably Bayh helps in swing states like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

The last name on my list is going to lead me off on a tangent, so let me toss out one other thought before I go there. Typically when we gossip about running-mate choices, we're thinking mostly about how it enhances the electability of the ticket. So long as the candidate meets a minimum standard, we don't think too much about him actually becoming president.

I wonder if that will be different this time. I think the prospect of either candidate not surviving his term is more alive in people's minds than usual. A charismatic black man brings to mind Martin Luther King, and it's not that rare to hear people (both black and white) worry out loud that Obama might be assassinated. With McCain it's his age. At 72, he'll be even older than Reagan when inaugurated. And although he doesn't seem frail, he doesn't really seem vigorous either. I'm not saying that either concern is actually justified, but I wonder if it's on people's minds. (Or if not, if the news media will harp on it anyway.)

Jim Webb. This is the most entertaining idea. Like everyone, I'm fascinated by the personal contrast. America is a land of many ethnicities, and God bless her for it. But in spite of what some would have you think, you don't have to be foreign or colored to be ethnic. There is such a thing as white ethnicity, too (several of them, in fact). And no one embodies the culture of good old-fashioned white folk like Jim Webb.

Like Obama, Webb is full of interesting contradictions. He's a former Republican, who served in Reagan's cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. Like McCain, he has a long family history of military participation ... and yet, like Obama, he opposed the war in Iraq. Webb's heritage is the Scotch-Irish culture of Pennsyltucky -- fiercely loyal and patriotic, suspicious of authority and elites, and ever ready to brawl -- the same race that gave us pugnacious presidents like Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, and Ulysses Grant. Jim Webb is not only born of this culture, but he even wrote a book about it (Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America). And there lies another of his many contradictions. Good ol' boys are known for drinking, not for authoring books. But here is Webb, self-proclaimed redneck, formulating a thesis about the significance of redneck culture in American history. Like Obama, Webb is introspective, and a favorite topic of his introspection is his own racial and cultural identity.

The downside of choosing Webb, of course, is that he's a bit wild. He's certainly not a "safe" pick. He likes to speak his mind. For all of Obama's openness to untraditional ideas, and willingness to voice sentiments considered politically unsafe, the Obama campaign has nevertheless been extremely disciplined with respect to its message. Webb doesn't strike me as disciplined in that way, so I'm not sure the campaign could tolerate him.

But it's Webb's other issue that interests me even more. This is the tangent I promised to go off on, but now I see this post is long enough, so I'll just leave it hanging on the cliff and follow up some other day.

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