Democrats abandoning Florida?

Traditionally the hopeful president almost always picked a running mate as VP who will ensures he will get votes in the states he himself (no she yet, sadly) isn’t fairing t hat well. Florida, as one of the most important states accounting for 25 electoral votes, has always been considered.

But today it was leaked that the John Kerry campaign is beginning the vetting process for VP consideration. The shortlist so far includes such previously mentioned names as John Edwards (who failed to bring home Southern states, so may not be a good choice) Dick Gephardt, (who may work out, but performed poorly in the primaries overall) but also Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa.

This is rather interesting. While there may be more names that will be added to the VP shortlist it may indicate that Kerry would rather go after the Midwest than the South, including Florida. Mathematically he could take the Midwest and not Florida, but still win. Is this an emerging strategy set to defeat Republicans in states that they did not expect heavy campaigning? We’ll see, but it is bound to get interesting.