When this site conducted a hearty discussion on vice presidential picks, many readers suggested Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) would be just the man for the job: He's got national security credentials, he's certainly not "of" Washington, he's from a state Democrats think they can actually win in 2008, and, if he won, his replacement would be chosen by a Democratic governor.

We aim not to spark the whole veep selection discussion up again, but to find it interesting, in a conspiracy-theory kind of way, that Webb is headed to Manchester in October to headline the New Hampshire Democrats' Jefferson-Jackson dinner.

In other off-the-wall White House news, a new Field Poll [PDF] shows that Republicans may have a shot at some of California's electoral votes. Here's how it works: In most states, the winner of the whole state is awarded all the state's electoral votes. In Maine and Nebraska, the winner of each congressional district gets those electoral votes, and the winner of the state gets two additional votes.

Note, though, that both states have gone wholly for one candidate in each election in recent memory.

A ballot initiative in California would award electoral votes in the same manner as Maine and Nebraska. The difference: President Bush won 22 of California's 53 congressional districts in 2000 and 2004. If the initiative passes, it could take 20 electoral votes from what is now one-fifth of a winning Democrat's strategy to get to 270.

The poll shows 47% of the state supporting the idea, while 35% support a winner-take-all method. Democrats are split, while independents and Republicans go heavily for the district-by-district method.

Democrats are beginning a voter education campaign, while Republicans are going to have to dump a lot of money in an effort to collect the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot. Paid signature gatherers can earn up to $2 per signature, though rumors of $5 per signature keep floating around states with difficult petition laws.