I think Noam is still hoping for a last-minute coup by the Clinton campaign, and is suggesting ways in which Barack Obama can sabotage his own campaign.

As it is with many number oriented folk, he doesn't seem very good at judging character or people. Noam needs to keep his head in the numbers, that's what he's good at, and stop making suggestions that make him look like he's out of his depth as well.

"Casey seems so completely out of his depth."

That's, "out of his element."

I think most people only really know Casey as the guy who slew the Santorum dragon in 2006 -- if they know him at all. He does have some good appeal to demographics Obama needs help with, however. And given that there's no clear frontrunner for an Obama veep, it's not worth ruling out. The one thing that might complicate the affair more than anything is Obama's staunch pro-choice views and Casey's pro-life stance. It will become an issue during debates when they talk about Supreme Court appointments.

Casey won because he wasn't Rick Santorum.  I had several friends who were working on the Casey campaign and even at the time, almost none of them thought highly of Casey.  I can't say I blame them.  Aside from ideological issues that bother many Dems, Casey is simply a horrific speaker.  One of the low points in my view of politics came during a conference call where Casey was speaking.  Most of the people on the call were people that worked for him in some capacity, so I figured he might give real answers to the questions people asked (I'd hope a guy would seriously answer my questions after I'd been working fir him for a while)  Instead what I heard was pure, unadulterated talking points.  I was pretty jaded for a bit after that.

Unless McCain goes  comepletely inasane and makes Rich Santorum his polictfy afters.Casey would be an awful VP choice.  He has no experience, and little if any campaign skill. The only thing he would "bring" to the ticket would bet moderate cotes/

As another PA resident but without personal knowledge of the man, I have to agree with this general assessment. As a candidate, he never showed me anything more than not being his opponent. Rendell beat him to a pulp in the guv's primary because Rendell is in a completely different league as a politician. He's animated, smart, savvy, entertaining, a good sh!t generally. He's great on the Eagles post-game show every week during football season, btw. Casey is none of those things. At best, he's unoffensive and seems like a nice enough guy. I voted for him against Santorum because he wasn't Santorum. I'd have voted for Daffy Duck over Santorum. If he'd run against Spector, I'd have voted for Arlen (which I did in one of his elections when the Democrat they ran against him was pro-gun and anti-choice). They guy's not even remotely vice-presidential material and he'd be a horrible attack dog in the campaign.

I'll give you hardworking RE: Santorum, but I can't accept "knowledgeable".

Like I said on the original post: I don't have ANY sense that he's ready on day 1 or 101 for that job.  

In a way, that makes his endorsement more courageous.  He's a product of the political machine here, which is definitely pro-Hillary.  

And remember in the neo-con ascendancy, Santorum was being groomed as the post-W potential...we really dodged a bullet there!

I still like Richardson: Hispanic, executive and foreign policy experience, not a 'washington insider', or Bloomberg, definitely not a standard candidate and would definitely be a good pick if recession was on everyone's mind. Doesn't help with rank and file, but in the general that's maybe not as important...

Andrew Sullivan noted last night that the right wing blogosphere hasn't uttered a word about the Casey endorsement (nothing at NRO), which is peculiar because he's actually got a bit of a following in many of these quarters. I don't really know what this means; the radio silence is just very curious.

Also, Casey is anti-choice. Isn't it a democratic article of faith that national ticket candidates have to be pro-choice? Wouldn't nominating a anti-choice  Dem VP be like McCain choosing a pro-immigration, anti-corprate running mate?

I concede that the idea of Bob Casey as a running mate has more than its share of flaws. But, if the