Don't pick Clinton as VP plea Thursday, 5 June, 2008
Ex-US president Jimmy Carter has urged Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama not to choose Hillary Clinton as his running-mate.
Tasked with uniting a Democratic party torn apart by months of bitterly divisive campaigning, Mr Obama must now pick a vice presidential candidate who can appeal to voters across the board.
But selecting the former first lady as the second name on his ticket "would be the worst mistake that could be made," Obama supporter Mr Carter told the UK's Guardian newspaper.
"That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates," he said.
"If you take that 50% who just don't want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don't think Obama is white enough or old enough or experienced enough or because he's got a middle name that sounds Arab, you could have the worst of both worlds."
Mr Carter, US president from 1977 to 1981, said he would also have been against Mr Obama being vice-presidential nominee had Ms Clinton won the battle for the presidential nomination.
Instead the peace campaigner favours "a person who can compensate for [Obama's] obvious potential defects, his youthfulness and his lack of long experience in military and international affairs".
His personal pick, he said, would be former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sam Nunn, 69.
