John – Your piece this morning is very good and very helpful in terms of laying out the pros and cons of the Veep contenders. But I do not buy the Gephardt prediction either. You can pick a Washington insider when you’re a Washington outsider. But when the top of the ticket is pure beltway politician — I mean he’s taken more special interest money than any other Senator for fifteen years — adding another beltway pol doesn’t make that much sense. It certainly makes some, as you point out. You’d have to go back to LBJ to find an all-insider presidential ticket.

And remember Dean’s fired up a big chunk of the base by running against the business-as-usual crowd. Gephardt is the distilled essence of business as usual. He oversaw the loss of the House to the Gingroid Barbarians, for Pete’s sake. He’s perhaps the only major Democratic politician other than Kerry who’s duller than Kerry — that is since Gore has lost the ability to modulate the pitch of his voice. The Democrats really, really need to fire-up their base, excite the media, etc. I just don’t think Gephardt fires up anybody except Teamsters in St. Louis.