Amos, I think the Republicans must have been gambling on the rather facile notion that they would get the "Hillary vote" if they picked a woman for VP...specially a "working class" woman (hockey mom). If so, they sure miscalculated big time. Someone here last night was saying (while we all celebrated Obama's win) that the Republicans would have been better off to have chosen Condoleeza Rice as their VP candidate. The same person also said that the most stunning single incident in the election to help clinch it was Colin Powell's public endorsement of Obama. I would tend to agree.