Left to Right: Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), retired General Wesley Clark, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell are those thought to be among Barack Obama's vice-presidential picks.

*Photos:

Evan Bayh - Alex Brandon/AP;

Wesley Clark - Alex Brandon/AP; Kathleen Sebelius - Paul Sancya/AP; Tim Kaine - Harry Cabluck/AP;

Chet Edwards - Lauren Victoria Burke/AP;

Ed Rendell - Hans Deryk/AP *

Readers: Please see update.

Barack Obama said Thursday that he's decided on a running mate, but he's keeping mum on just who that someone is. After all – he's promised supporters that they would be the first to know via e-mail and text message.

That announcement is expected to be made sometime Friday, or even Saturday.

A presidential nominee's choice of a running mate often ultimately boils down to their comfort level in a working relationship with another individual, says Tad Devine, founder of the political messaging and media firm Devine Mulvey.

Devine served as Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen's campaign manager when he was on the ticket in 1988 as vice president with former Massachusetts

Governor Michael Dukakis.

"It has a lot more to do with the background screening and the individual personal chemistry and dynamics. That's what's really the driving force," he says. "It's about picking someone who you can have complete confidence in. When they walk out into that press conference, and when they stand there and make their speech, or whatever it is, that they will comport themselves in such a way that there will be no questions about their capacity to serve not only as vice president, but ultimately as a president."

Obama has his own personal criteria for his pick, and his political strategists probably have theirs. But given that both Obama's campaign and the Democratic party as a wholehave committed themselves to establishing a national broadband strategy, and that there's an opportunity for a vice president to set a tone and to boost pet policies, we thought we'd look at potential picks' backgrounds, if any, in boosting broadband, a key piece of infrastructure for economic development.

Several of the politicians whose names have been floated are governors, or former governors of their states. That's noteworthy because it usually means that they've had to deal with a whole spectrum of issues that inevitably includes infrastructure. Almost all of the politicians whose names have been mentioned as potential picks and who are governors have been engaged in encouraging the roll out of emerging telecommunications services.

That's helpful to an administration interested in fostering the rollout of ubiquitous broadband because those individuals should have had some experience in managing the competing interests between advocacy groups and business interests in the complex world of telecommunications politics.

Ideally, a leader would have the ability to bring those people together to bring them to a consensus to push a policy forward. Al Gore convened meetings every Tuesday morning between top administration officials to coordinate on telecom policy issues, for example, recalls Larry Irving, a former adviser to the Clinton White House on telecom policy as an assistant secretary in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, a 50-year-old Democrat who's been mentioned as among the top contenders for the running-mate position, only just began to investigate the idea of bringing ubiquitous, affordable broadband to all the residents in his state last summer. He's established a committee to come up with a report with ideas on how to achieve the goal, but there doesn't appear to have been much more of a development beyond that.

Kaine's record on getting anything done so far in improving the state's transportation infrastructure isn't encouraging. Pundits admit that his efforts have been stymied by the Republican-controlled legislature, however. Nevertheless Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, has a pretty damning verdict.

"Having known every governor since Albertis Harrison (1962-1966) and having studied the records of the dozen most recent governors, I would characterize Kaine's term to this point as belonging to the bottom quartile," he recently wrote in an editorial this July.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, a 60-year-old Democrat in a

Republican state, for her part in May signed into law a telecom bill that requires broadband providers to file reports about the geographic areas that they serve to state regulatory authorities. The first report is due October 1. The bill also requires the state antitrust authority to approve mergers and acquisitions between telecom companies within

120 days.

Some pundits think Sebelius is a good pick because of her record on being able to work across party lines. Like Kaine, the political downside to the potential pick is that she doesn't have any foreign policy experience that could balance out Obama's relative lack of experience.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, the 64-year-old politician who was a hearty supporter of Hillary Clinton's during the primaries, is another name that's been floated.

Philadelphia's botched muni WiFi project is probably the first thing that springs to mind when thinking of broadband rollout in

Pennsylvania. The ambitious project was mired in politics. Rendell himself favored the telecom incumbents' position. He preferred to give telecom companies first dibs at having the option of providing service to an area before a municipality decided to embark on a project itself.

The Pennsylvania legislature approved a bill that made that set up a law in 2004.

Rendell also signed into law last month a bill that exempts VOIP

servies from being regulated by state agencies, except for enforcing existing rules concerning 911 and a few other services. He's also approved state grants in the past to bring broadband to schools.

Indiana senator Evan Bayh, the state's 52-year-old former governor, is another hot pick among the chattering classes. He also endorsed

Clinton during the primaries.

But he's opposed as a V.P. pick by many anti-war activists and the netroots because of his early support for the Iraq war. He was also one of the Democrats this July who voted in favor of the FISA Amendments act, which provided legal immunity to telecom companies for participating in President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program and updated the nation's electronic surveillance laws.

Despite the vocal online opposition to the prospect of Bayh becoming vice president from the liberal blogosphere, "100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh for V.P.," a Facebook group started last week has so far only gathered just over 4,000 members.

Many in the progressive/liberal blogosphere prefer retired general __Wesley Clark __as a V.P. pick.

"The political argument for Clark is simple. He is a great surrogate for Democrats, with experience in 2004 and 2006 on the campaign trail, and a genuine national base of supporters," argued progressive activist Matt Stoller on OpenLeft, a prominent lefty blog.

Stoller and a friend Aaron Ament even went so far as to launch a petition to push for Clark.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama had repeated disagreements with the netroots. So it wouldn't be a surprise if he ignored their online rants and goes ahead and picks Bayh.

The Associated Press* *reports Friday that Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas is also in the running.

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