Obama's No. 2: If Not Clinton, Then Who?

The selection of a vice president is all about perception. Perception that the candidate will be fair to both sides of the conservative-liberal fence. The North-South fence. In this case, the male-female fence. The black-white fence. Barack Obama also might want to try to neutralize John McCain's strengths by, for instance, picking someone with military experience.

The vice president doesn't really have any constitutional responsibilities while the president is alive other than being a tie-breaker in the Senate. A robot can do that (since the vice president essentially votes the way the president wants him or her to vote).

What's become important, though, is not only the selection but the process. For instance, Obama is trying to align himself with the Camelot image created by JFK's presidency in the '60s, so he named Caroline Kennedy to the committee to help him select a vice president. She has zero political experience, and now she's helping to hand-pick the person who is a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Meanwhile, James Johnson (former chairman of Fannie Mae (FNM), who had a bit more experience, was too linked to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (FRE) and had to bow out to avoid Obama's being linked to the corporate scandals occurring throughout subprime America.

With all this in mind, I've given some thought to Obama's potential running mates, and I'm ready to declare what I think their odds are. Tomorrow, in part II of this article, we'll discuss such names as John Edwards and Al Gore, who has ties to some big-name stocks, including Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL). Today, though, we'll focus on some of the women who could score a spot on the presidential ticket.

Click here to see who I think has the highest odds of being Obama's VP candidate.