Más sobre el caso Schweiker

El Boston Globe también habla esta mañana de la experiencia del caso Schweiker como una opción interesante para cualquiera de los dos candidatos demócratas de este año. Risky strategy that doomed Reagan in '76 could boost Democrats

(...) As the 1976 Republican National Convention approached, Ronald Reagan's campaign was facing almost certain demise. His rival, President Gerald Ford, seemed to have won over enough previously undecided delegates to be the nominee. Reagan had to shake things up, so he chose his running mate before securing the nomination.

Despite naming Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania the would-be vice president to shore up support among Republican moderates, Reagan lost the delegate race by a little more than 100. But picking a vice president while trailing in delegates was a bold technique that some political analysts think might repeat itself in this year's tight Democratic race, the first since the Reagan-Ford contest that could go down to the wire in the same way.

"It could be that a presidential candidate could in effect run with somebody and make it look like this is a winning ticket," said Jeffrey Bell, a 1976 Reagan campaign aide who was involved in "trying to sell" the Schweiker selection and now works for a Washington-based consulting firm.

In the 32 years since the Reagan-Ford campaign, no candidate has named a running mate before earning the party's nomination.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois holds a narrow lead in delegates, with many of the party's superdelegates still undecided. Like Reagan in 1976, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York is trailing by just enough delegates to justify a possibly groundbreaking tactic, according to some analysts. (...)