Obama needs a woman, and I don't mean for sex

NBC News revealed new poll resuls this evening that showed Republican Sen. John McCain has pulled within three percentage points of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in the race for the presidency. In polling, three percentage points are a statistical dead heat.

And news media pundits are sending out conflicting signals tonight that Obama will pick either Sen. Joe Biden or Sen. Evan Bayh for his running mate on Saturday. Biden brings more to a ticket than Bayh. He is a class guy and foreign policy expect. But neither MAN offers any excitement that Sen. Hillary Clinton would bring as a running mate, or another female politico of substance.

The glow is off the Obama campaign. Next week's Democratic National Convention offers some hope of reinvigoration, but then McCain gets to trump Obama's pick publicity-wise with his own VP choice. And talk of McCain picking Sen. Joseph Lieberman makes a McCain presidency more acceptable.

Also to my liking is all the grief being hurled at McCain by radio talk jock Rush Limbaugh over possibly picking McCain. If Rush hates it, then it has to be good for America.

A bipartisan ticket of McCain-Lieberman gives me hope that McCain would be about dishing out payback to conservatives such as Limbaugh if he gets to the White House. And that could mean immigration reform with a new process toward legalization of undocumented human beings. That could mean something closer to universal health care and affordability than this nation has ever had. That could mean Supreme Court choices not geared to how a nominee stands on abortion.

Liberman is pro-choice. McCain is against abortion.

Obama's inexperience has shown up since he defeated Clinton. His comment on the Russian invasion of Georgia was shockingly ridiculous. Then he went on vacation. National security moms are going to determine the election in November. Obama deeply worries them.

McCain is much more a threat to capture the presidency than he was before Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. That's Obama's fault. And it is his weakness that any convention bounce or picking yet another man for his ticket cannot hope to cover.

For some strange reason, I expect more of the Democrats to recognize the need for a woman on the ticket to truly make it historic and invincible. Creating change in Washington must be preceded by change in the good ol' boy system that dominates politics of both parties. Biden and Bayh represent more of the same. And picking either of them will make voting for McCain more palatable.