Veep in the Middle

While nuclear non-proliferation is unlikely to be a first tier campaign issue, the public education that would accompany the selection of Nunn would reflect positively on Obama. A campaign narrative focused on the nuclear dangers of Iran and Pakistan, where both Democrats are well-informed, would lend the Democratic ticket some gravitas. And Nunn's opposition to the war in Iraq from the outset would help make McCain's pro-war position seem like the one out of the mainstream.

The conventional view is that choosing someone perceived as experienced on foreign policy would make Obama look insecure, as if he wasn't confident of his own strengths on these issues. The other, more persuasive view is that in such a big Democratic year there's only one way Obama loses—the way Charlie Black suggested, with a terrorist attack on American soil. Should that happen, a Democratic ticket without someone like Nunn would be highly vulnerable.

Selecting Nunn would be a defensive move but not a weak one. That's because the choice would have its own doubling down effect, reinforcing Obama's support for ending the war in the context of greater support for veterans and the military, and for shifting the Pentagon's emphasis in the Middle East from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Nunn also makes it clear that he backs Obama's position on talking to Iran. "You can't have a dialogue when you have a pre-condition to beginning that dialogue," he said in Aspen, sounding like a man who could dispense with John McCain's appeasement analogies with a wave of the hand.

And Nunn might offer a bit more boldness than those who covered him in the Senate may remember. When asked about the U.S. embargo against Cuba, he said: "To show that I'm not running for anything, the policy is counter-productive and should have been changed long ago. It's biggest beneficiary is Castro."

In fact, that doesn't show he's uninterested in the vice-presidency because support for lifting the trade embargo is no longer political suicide in Florida. Obama himself hinted at a policy shift when traveling in the state recently.

The biggest stumbling block in selecting Nunn is his support in 1993 for a Pentagon study that backed a don't-ask-don't-tell policy for gays in the military. Nunn's position now is a mixture of new rhetoric ("I'm grateful to the thousands of gays and lesbians serving today") and a willingness to "review the policy" with an eye toward "eventually" changing it.