Top 5 VP Choices for Hillary Clinton

The Democratic Party primary has gone on for more than a year and by now both Obama and Hillary Clinton have thought long and hard of who they would pick to be their Vice President running mate. Many potential Democrat VP choices have asked Clinton to step aside and let Obama be the party nominee so anyone who has made enemies with the Clintons is thereby ruled out like Governor Bill Richardson and Senator Chris Dodd. Here are the top 5 possible choices that Hillary Clinton might chose:

1. Barack Obama: If Hillary Clinton somehow finds a way to win the party nominee, she will have no choice but to ask Senator Obama to be her Vice Presidential nominee. Even if Obama loses and is asked to be the VP, I'm not so sure that Obama would accept the position as second in command to Clinton. The two candidates have engaged in a bitter feud over the past few months as the campaigns have turned negative. Still, there have been bitter political rivals within a party who have ran against each other, only to have the loser become the VP to the party winner. As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows... Obama has so much support and there is no doubt that an Obama-Clinton ticket would be very strong and hard to beat. Recent polling has suggesstion that if Obama or Clinton is not a person's choice to the party nominee, they will either vote for McCain or not vote in the general election, a factor that will definitely hurt the Democratic party candidate against McCain.

2. Jim Webb: Jim Webb is an up and coming Democrat who one day will run for president of the United States. He served in the navy as did his father who was also into politics. Web recently beat an incumbent Republican to win the Virginia gubernatorial election. A good military man would be a strong ticket against John McCain huge advantage in military experience against Hillary Clinton. In addition, Virginia is usually a swing state and this would be a tremendous boost for Clinton in the general election if she were to win Virginia.

3. Joe Biden is a solid choice for Clinton. Throughout the entire campaign, he has supported Hillary Clinton's campaign. Biden ran for president before dropping out against Obama and Clinton. He does have some name recognition to go with his long standing record in the Senate and long tenure in office. He served on the military armed services committee and would be a good choice as VP. The only disadvantage of such a pairing would be that the ticket is imbalanced. Both Biden and Clinton are from the northeast and usually a pairing is derived from two politicians of different geographical regions or an area that is a swing state.

4. Wes Clark would be a solid choice for both Obama and Clinton. If you recall, he was on stage with Hillary Clinton during her first few campaign speeches and he is a long time supporter of the Clintons. He has a strong military background to match up against McCain and he is a good overall choice for VP.

5. Brian Schweitzer is a long shot candidate but only because few people know of him. He is in the similar mold as Jim Webb in that he recently won the gubernatorial election in a traditionally red state. Schweitzer became governor of Montana in 2004 as he beat his opponent Bob Brown who had been served as Montana's secretary of state. Montana is usually a reliable republican state, as Bush won by 20 points in 2004 and Montana has the most hunters out of any state which usually vote Republican. However, Schweitzer's shocking victory also led to Democratic control of the state legislature which had also been controlled by Republicans. Schweitzer was able to appeal to people by casting himself as a reformer and someone to bring change to disgruntled small business owners and townspeople. Schweitzer would certainly be a good candidate to put on the ticket and his experience as a governor could contrast well with Clinton's senatorial experience.