I'm a pretty liberal person, so I do view Webb's past with a little discomfort. But's it's all water under the bridge because he made the momentous decision to run as a Democrat and oppose the war and Bush's policies.

This is what we want. This is the goal. Webb should be embraced, despite his past flaws, because he serves as a model for how a conservative America can become a more progressive place.

The uncompromising view that Timothy Noah espouses might be principled, but it's not very pragmatic. The most important thing to to nurture and grow a blue America, and it's this will be much easier to do with we're willing to welcome people like Webb with open arms.

I couldn't think of a better way than to put him on the VP ticket.

Well said.

Webb's primary strength as a VP candidate is that he does well with the blue collar, Appalachian whites that seem to be Obama's achilles heel. He could tip Virginia, Ohio, and maybe a couple of other purple states into the dems' camp.

As the New Republic put it recently:

And the specific trajectory of Webb's political anger--he's a former Republican now raging against a "Republican Party that continually seeks to politicize military service" and CEOs "openly consumed by self-justifying greed"--is powerfully appealing, too. He embodies the liberal fantasy laid out by Thomas Frank in What's the Matter With Kansas?: that blue-collar whites will stop being mad at liberals for frowning at their guns and start being mad at conservatives for raping their pocketbooks. His emotional journey is the same one liberals want lower-class whites to undergo en masse.

But you see, we don't want to alienate Gerry Ferraro! The truth is, Obama would be better off using the HIllary nutters as his Sisters Souljah. He doesn't need them - he needs the middle.