Who will Obama choose as his VP candidate?

August 20th, 2008 by crystal

With the Democratic National Convention only 5 days away and Obama’s Vice-Presidential running mate slated to give a speech a week from today, time is running out for Obama to make a decision. According to CNN, speculation has narrowed the possibilities down to 2 contenders; Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine. Not being very familiar with either one, I decided to do a little research. Here are the basics:

Evan Bayh

Evan Bayh is a 52 year old democrat from Indiana. He is a former Governor of Indiana and is a current junior US Senator for Indiana. His father ran for president in 1976. Bayh’s background is in law and he is considered by most to be a ‘centrist’. During his tenure as governor, Indiana saw both the largest tax cut and the largest budget surplus in the state’s history. He also worked to create high academic standards for students and created the 21st Century Scholars Act which paid the tuition for students who were categorized as being on “free and reduced lunch”, who graduated from high school and who pledged to stay “drug free”. During his tenure as senator, he supported the war in Iraq and voted for the Patriot Act.

Tim Kaine

Tim Kaine is a 50 year old democrat from Virginia. He is currently the governor of Virginia and was formerly the mayor of Richmond. He is from a working class family. Kaine has a background in law and attended Harvard Law School. During law school, he did missionary work in Honduras and became fluent in Spanish. Notable contributions he made while governor: he supported land conservation measures over development and passed a law requiring all 6th grade girls to receive the HPV vaccination. During his campaign for governor, he received much support from traditionally Republican areas as well as Democratic areas.

I’m sure we’ll learn more about the actual candidate once he’s been picked!