On the vice president...
I'm always exhausted by the whole veep frenzy every election cycle. It's a self-perpetuating thing - campaigns want something for which they can get press and the media wants something it can cover - there's not much actual news there.
A VP choice can only hurt you - say if the guy turns out to have a love child (did someone say John Edwards?) or if he holds some position that angers the one-issue people. What region the VP comes from, his experience, and all that other stuff that gets considered (and covered) in the choice doesn't actually matter - people vote for the guy at the top of the ticket. The best VP candidate is the guy who doesn't hurt you - that's it.
On "socialized" medicine...
I just listened to this health series on NPR and I learned that countries like France actually don't have socialized medicine. The reporter said that the French detest socialized medicine (like Great Britain's system) - most French insurance funds are private entities managed by employer and union federations. The French demand and get lots of choice when it comes to health care (house visits!). Germany's health care system is part non-profit insurance and part well-regulated private insurance (for the self-employed).
My rant...
By the way, all this laissez-faire ecomonic bullshit that libertarians and republicans throw around is so CINECAST!ing annoying. Look at our economy - our government CINECAST!ing controls interest rates, it controls the amount of money in circulation. You can't take the government out of our economy because 1) the government helps to control the value of our currency for better or worse and 2) see: mortgage/credit crisis; deregulation leads to formerly safe banking institutions (not even investment banks) getting into gambling, otherwise known as derivatives, and into buying retarded-ass bundled i-can't-even-afford-a-pot-to-piss-in mortgages