Yes, Charlie, it sounds exactly like that:
Amid all the speculation about whether U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh might be picked to be Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, at least some pundits are saying not to count out another prominent Hoosier -- Republican Sen. Richard Lugar.
Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report, said he knows the idea sounds "completely nutty." But, he said, he thinks there is a chance Obama could reach across party lines to someone like Lugar or Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska to join him on the Democratic ticket.
Despite Lugar's sometimes apparent moderation and all of Obama's talk of consensus politics, the two are poles apart. Political organizations that care about such things rate Obama as very liberal, and Lugar has always been rated as extremely conservative. For such a ticket to even exist, one of them would have had to give up a lifetime's world view, and that's not going to happen. Lugar's chief of staff put it succinctly: "No. Hell, no."
