Barack's Nunn

The Boston Globe is pushing former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn to be Barack's running mate. The two are close, apparently, starting with Barack's request for a meeting when he began his long career in national politics, three years ago.

Nunn, who during a 24-year Senate career earned a reputation as the Democratic Party's foremost defense advocate while amassing a moderate voting record, met Obama at his office in February 2005. There, the two talked for hours about the issue on which Nunn has spent much of the last two decades: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

What's the big interest in Sam Nunn? He provides what Barack can't.

For two decades, Nunn has been floated as a potential vice presidential candidate by virtue of his national security credentials and conservative southern roots. And each time he has dismissed such talk out of hand, while the party's nominees opted for more liberal choices from states more likely to go Democratic in November.

Nunn could also be part of a possible deal with Hillary that he choose a running mate who would not be seeking the presidency in four years were Barack to lose. Nunn, who endorsed Barack in April, will be turning 74 in 2012.

"He sounds like he may be more open to it," said Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine Corps general who served on Nunn's Senate staff for 24 years and remains in close contact with his former boss. "He has never before endorsed anybody. That was a surprise to me."

Nunn would be a good strategic choice, perhaps having the muscle to swing Georgia to the Democrats for the first time since Bill Clinton's first run.

Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, said he believes Nunn could boost Obama's electoral chances in Georgia. "He is still a heavyweight" in local politics, Black said.

All of this sounds like a pretty picture until you consider the negatives.

Nunn, who will turn 70 before Election Day, could undercut assertions that an Obama administration would bring a youthful vibrancy in stark contrast to his 71-year-old Republican opponent John McCain. Nunn himself cited a lack of "zest and enthusiasm" for politics when retiring from the Senate in 1997. Putting Nunn on the ticket could also take some of the sheen from Obama's image of change.

Meanwhile, his past stance against gays serving openly in the military would probably alienate some elements of the Democratic Party.

And Nunn looks old and geeky - he would support the GOP need to link Barack's youth with his inexperience. It's hard to imagine that seeing the two of them standing together wouldn't trigger odd couple discomfort in just about everyone, with Nunn's presence serving as an impediment to Barack's attempts to stoke age bias against McCain.

Were he a dozen years younger and still serving in the U.S. Senate, the choice would be an obvious one.