I was really disappointed to hear Barack Obama pick fellow senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential nominee. While I had long since given up hope of his choosing Hillary Clinton, I thought a fine compromise option–and certainly the most intriguing candidate from the insurance industry's perspective–would be Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, former president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Unfortunately, Sen. Obama played it safe and picked Sen. Biden–something of a windbag–as his running mate. Biden has the foreign policy credentials to shore up Obama's weakness in that department, and he can serve as Obama's attack dog in the campaign. But Biden was definitely not an inspired or inspiring choice–especially for someone who has vowed to bring change to Washington's business-as-usual. What will change if your choice for running mate has been around Capitol Hill for decades?

It's also embarrassing to choose someone who said during the primaries that Obama had no business being in the White House because we cannot afford a president who needs on-the-job training. That's what Biden said during the debates, hammering away at Obama's lack of experience, words that are already coming back to haunt them both.

I had hoped Sen. Clinton would be the choice, having drawn millions of votes in the primaries, generated a ton of excitement among her devout supporters, proven herself an able political street fighter, and reestablished her credentials as the leading crusader for healthcare reform. But Obama never seemed comfortable with Clinton–or her husband.

However, I thought Gov. Sebelius would be a solid compromise choice. Sen. Clinton's supporters might still have been disappointed, but their deep sense of offense might have been eliminated had Obama chosen another qualified woman as his running mate.

Plus there would be no sound bites with Sebelius trashing her running mate, like we have with Biden, as she endorsed Obama's candidacy early on. She was a true Obama supporter, not someone who accepted a second banana role when we all know they feel they are the superior candidate for president. (The same criticism could have applied to Hillary Clinton had she been chosen as veep.)

It would certainly have been interesting to have Sebelius on board, and just imagine the impact on insurance had an ex-commissioner and NAIC president made it into the White House!

Would a former state regulator talk President Obama out of an optional federal charter?

Would she have been given responsibility for seeing to it that that health insurance reforms were passed and implemented?

How would a former NAIC president advise her White House partner on catastrophe insurance issues? Terrorism coverage? Flood insurance? Long-term care coverage? The possibilities would have been endless.

With an Obama-Biden ticket, however, insurance is probably doomed to remain in the backwater of Washington politics–always an afterthought, addressed only when Congress is put in a corner and given no choice but to vote on some insurance-related bill, such as when deadlines on renewing the National Flood Insurance Program come up.

Ah, what might have been!

What do you folks think???

Special Reports /

Sebelius Should Have Been Obama's Veep!

Related Stories

Recommended For You