That must have been where they got the idea for 'Boy Meets Boy'!! <snark>
Elsewhere, a list member reported that Vilsack was supposedly headed off on a family vacation, accompanied by a secret service security detail, suggesting he may be the Veep choice.
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Kelley asked who Vilsack is. He's the govenor of Iowa, with a very appealing biography. This is from today's Washington Post.
Vilsack, the Lesser-Known Contender for Kerry Ticket
By David S. Broder
When Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, then the Kansas insurance commissioner, was considering running for governor of her staunchly Republican state in 2002, she went to visit Tom Vilsack, then finishing up his first term as governor of neighboring Iowa.
"I couldn't figure out how he had won," she recalled. "I'd read that he was 27 points behind his well-known Republican opponent on Labor Day [1998], he'd just fired his third campaign manager and he was out of money after his primary. Iowa hadn't elected a Democratic governor in [30 years]. So how did he win?
"I spent two hours with him," Sebelius recalled, "and I understood. He had a better vision for his state, and he worked three times as hard as his opponent. It was just perseverance and chutzpah, and I figured if he could do what he did starting where he was on Labor Day, I'm willing to put my quarter down."
Sebelius, who beat the odds to become Kansas's governor in 2002, is a cheerleader for Vilsack's chance to become the Democratic vice presidential candidate.
Far less well known than either of the two former presidential candidates reportedly being considered by Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) along with others for his ticket -- Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) -- Vilsack is seen by supporters such as Sebelius as having qualities that would, in time, appeal to many voters.
Doug Campbell, a Pittsburgh lawyer who has known Vilsack since nursery school, says: "Tom is exactly what he appears to be. He's earnest, very hardworking, honest, loyal. He's not a rock star. Is he brilliant? No. But he is very intelligent, and he works very hard. He's always done his homework."
When Edwards and Gephardt campaigned for the presidential nomination, they stressed their humble origins -- the former from a mill worker's family, the latter a milkman's son. But Vilsack, 53, has what may be a more compelling story -- he is an orphan whose abusive adoptive mother spent years fighting alcoholism.
Raised in Pittsburgh (a key to politically vital Pennsylvania), he moved to his wife's home state of Iowa after law school and joined his father-in-law practicing law in the small town of Mount Pleasant. When the mayor of that Republican community was assassinated by a disgruntled constituent, Vilsack was recruited by the former mayor's family to run for the office -- even though he was a Democrat.
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"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'