OBAMA MAY HAVE TO CHOOSE SURPRISE VICE PRESIDENT
By R J Shulman
HONOLULU - Even though he claims he’s on vacation, presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama is hard at work trying to decide on his running mate while visiting his home state of Hawaii. “This is the first and most critical choice of his post-nomination Presidential bid,” said Henry Franklin, a senior Obama campaign manager. “We can’t choose a man to run as the Vice President as a man will either chase after women like John Edwards or if he doesn’t, he’ll be accused of being gay, and we can’t choose a woman because Hillary said Obama is not ready to be President and we can’t choose any woman other than Hillary or we will lose all of her supporters and the last thing we want is for a black man to look at the poll numbers as say, ‘where the white women at?’”

Having all men and all women eliminated from Obama’s short list for Vice President has posed a dilemma for the Illinois Senator. Sources close to Obama say he needs something very mainstream American which he seems to have found in his top two choices - an apple pie or a flag pin. “We are leaning toward the apple pie,” said a reliable source in the Obama camp, “because it is well liked by just about everybody, it can be warm and sweet, but can strike back by being tart if need be. The down side of an apple pie is that it can be like John Kerry, you know, too passive, letting itself get cut up by anyone who attacks it. On the other hand the flag pin cannot be attacked for being unpatriotic. However, the negative on the flag pin is that it can be like George W. Bush and get stuck on something and not be able to alter its course no matter how idiotic the path it may be on.”

“I don’t think he will choose the pie or the pin,” said Harvey Baines, a Washington insider, “I predict he is going to pick Dick Cheney, not so much to reach across the isle, but as a face saving measure.”