David Issacharoff: Hotter Summer than Usual

This is what people -- more specifically, political junkies -- have been waiting for ever since the 2008 election ended. The United States cannot and will not accept a lame, dry and dull election season. With $3 billion(!) going into this election, two campaigns slamming each other and one president trying to survive, this election is on a very ugly yet exciting path.

Now that summer is approaching, with election in the fall, the election and the campaigns are fully underway. There is no doubt that Obama takes Romney as a credible threat. Obama has the money, brains and record to beat Romney, but it seems that people are shunning support for the president, giving theirs to Romney. It makes sense. Campaigning for president is very different from being president.

Mitt Romney has been speaking to the country already for a year and a half, telling them exactly what they want to hear, whether they are in New York or Alabama or Idaho. He's a great campaigner, because he is a pure flip-flopper, which I would say is cheating the system -- but that's nothing new to us at all. The president is also one of the best campaigners, because if he wasn't, he wouldn't be president. The difference between these two great campaigners is that Obama does it honestly with honest messages, and with Romney, you never know what he actually means. Obama has been president, and I should think that being President is much harder than being a candidate. Let Obama get out and campaign, and he'll win back the hearts of the voters with a little work and a lot of money.

It's summer, and now the talk about vice-presidential candidates rises. It's 'veepstakes' season, and Romney must make one of the hardest and most important choices of his political life. The Republicans must be extremely careful. 2008 was a vice-presidential disaster that cost them the election. The GOP obviously needs a VP candidate with electability: a strategic home state and appeal to minorities. It has been said that the GOP must shake off the white-male stigma, and I'm confident that they will choose either a woman or a minority, but they have to watch their steps.

There have been some potential names thrown in the air. Marco Rubio would be great if he had a few more years in national politics on his resume. He is young, Hispanic and from a battleground state -- Florida. I would not be surprised one bit if I saw him at the convention being nominated as Mitt's running mate. Little known Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire has been gaining some attention lately for saying that she'd love to take on Joe Biden. She's articulate and she's a woman, but New Hampshire is not by any means electorally worthwhile, never mind that it borders Massachusetts, Romney's home state. That being said, in 1992, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton selected Al Gore from the bordering state of Tennessee.

There are many other potentials, such as Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal and Allen West -- and the list goes on. The ultimate candidate who will hit it out of the park and really make Romney a true threat to Obama-Biden is former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Rice is an African-American woman who is intelligent and knows foreign policy like the back of her hand. Condi gives the Romney ticket the national security and foreign policy record that it sorely needs, if Romney is such a great economist and job-creator. She polls well with Republicans, with her leading all the VP potential candidate polls.

She is perfect and has a fascinating life story, rising to who she is now from growing up as a black girl in Birmingham, Alabama. She is not a typical Republican, but she'll never do it. I personally cannot see Condi out campaigning. It doesn't fit well in my mind. She has made it clear that she has reservations for politics, as her image is not one of a politician, but an intellectual stateswoman. Just imagine Condi versus Joe Biden, two foreign policy giants, debating. Currently she teachers at Stanford and makes plenty of money with other business commitments. Too bad for Republicans.

Whoever the GOP vice-presidential nominee will be, he'll face Joe Biden in the debates and in the campaign. The media has created talk about Joe Biden being dropped out of the ticket, and asking pundits whether Obama should think about dropping Biden. I have no doubt that they thought to drop the vice president. But they didn't, and that shows that he shouldn't be dropped. Joe Biden is good for the Democrats and for Obama. Appealing to white middle-class working Americans is what Biden is great at. In his speeches, it is clear that he was one of them. He speaks so eloquently to the middle class that has slowly walked away from Obama. Biden is indispensable, and he might just win Obama reelection.

Once every four years, there is an extra-hot summer. Summers before presidential elections are summers that are remembered for the campaigns, the ads and in this case, their ugliness. So much money will be poured in from now until November, and while we wait and see Mitt Romney and Barack Obama making their case for a better America, we sit back, turn on our televisions, keep our eyes open and see what Americans voice at the ballot box.

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