Among the candidates who have been named on various short lists, Sam Nunn is probably the most vilified and despised among the netroots, even moreso than Hagel. There is good reason for this. The 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was one of the most shameful episodes of the Clinton era, and Nunn's participation earned him a lifetime of scorn. Yet, for this very reason, the possibility of Nunn has been almost completely dismissed. Instead, we get dozens of unrealistically hopeful diaries about Wes Clark, as well as the usual conventional wisdom regarding Bayh and Kaine. The fact of the matter, however, is that the dominant perceptions here are not the same as those held over at Obama HQ. As Obama's reversal on FISA demonstrated, he is not the least bit apprehensive about pissing off the netroots, and with McCain's visible embrace of the Rovian far right, anti-McCain sentiment has become nearly as powerful a motivating force as pro-Obama sentiment (as demonstrated by the Democrats' superb fundraising numbers), giving Obama even less incentive to cater to his base. For this reason, I suspect Nunn is probably more likely than most think, and that sometime this week, we may see a sudden spike in the number of broken cell phones. The question, then, is this: can progressives learn to stop worrying and love the Nunn?
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