David Ignatius has an op-ed urging Obama to reach across the aisle in making his VP pick to demonstrate that he really believes in the change message he's been peddling. He offers two suggestions: Republican Senator Chuck Hagel or former Democrat, former Republican, turned Independent Michael Bloomberg.

Chuck Hagel would be a thoroughly unacceptable pick for Barack Obama's Democratic Party and Barack Obama himself. Can you imagine Obama picking a staunchly pro-life, economic conservative (Hagel is from a farm state and he votes against the Farm Bill--that's hard core)? The problem with this suggestion is that it assumes Barack Obama actually wants to act like the candidate he sounds like. Obama talks about bridging the partisan divide, but his every action, his every vote have been liberal across the board. There is a very simple explanation for that: That is who he is. In this election, Obama is not the change candidate; McCain is. McCain is the candidate who has time and again, for better and for worse, ticked off his own party. Obama's short political career reads like it was compiled by the top five Democratic interest groups.

As for NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg--there is nothing particularly bipartisan about him. The media loves to describe the NYC mogul as a moderate, but Bloomberg's positions are that of a knee-jerk liberal, regardless of what he calls himself. Recall that Bloomberg only became a Republican to avoid a contentious Democratic primary in 2001. On social issues, he is a dyed-in-blue liberal and his fiscal policies have been far from conservative--replete with tax increase, bloated budgets, and nanny-state regulations.