According to several articles this morning, Obama has begun the process of shortlisting and vetting VP candidates. According to Democratic officials, James Johnson, who vetted VP candidates for Mondale and Kerry is in charge of shortlisting and vetting. Tom Daschle is also helping with this effort.
According to the New York Times,
With the Democratic National Convention only three months away, Senator Barack Obama has asked a tight circle of advisers to begin conducting a confidential search for prospective running mates.
More after the jump.
According to the International Herald Tribune, Obama's campaign has begun the process according to Democratic officials, but "The campaign also does not want to discuss the effort because they are still engaged in a fading primary campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton." They say in addition to looking for a VP candidate, Obama is quickly ramping up campaign staff for the general election.
Ambinder also says that Obama has begun his search for VP but that Obama says he will not talk publicly about the VP process until the nomination process is over, and Obama "swore his staff to secrecy" on the matter. Nevertheless, Ambinder printed a short list, but Ambinder is unclear whether this is Ambinder's list or a leaked list. If anyone is reading that differently, let me know, but my opinion is that this is Ambinder's list, not a leaked list:
Potential ticket-mates, in no particular order, include Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), Gov. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ex-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM), Ex-Sen. John Edwards, (D-NC), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS), Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), Sen. John Biden (D-DE), Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) ex-Rep. Tim Roemer (D-IN), Gov. Ted Strickland (D-OH) and others.
joy sinha pointed out in the comments that Clinton is probably not on the list -- according to The Field, Obama turned Clinton down when she asked for it.
According to Ambinder, Obama wanted to start the VP search on his own schedule, with plenty of time to vet thoroughly. They have begun, he says, by putting together dossiers on the VP candidates:
On his behalf, staffers are putting together a team to assist the search committee, and a hand-full of Democrats connected with the campaign will start to pull together dossiers (based only on open source research and press clippings at this point) on a large number of potential picks so that Obama can have something to read when he starts to think about the choice.
The goal is to have the dossiers complete by June 4.
As a side note, Ambinder reminds us that Johnson also vetted Ferraro. Let's hope he does a better job vetting Obama's VP candidates.
I also thought I would add that I saw Edwards in an interview a few days after his endorsement of Obama, and when he was asked about VP, he said, " Absolutely not." He was emphatic about it. Then he was asked about Attorney General, and he equivocated.