By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

Google “Kathleen Sebelius” these days and you’ll find a steady stream of analysis weighing the pros and cons of the Kansas governor as Barack Obama’s potential running mate.

Pro: She’s a successful blue governor in a red state.

Con: Her fireside rebuttal to President Bush’s State of the Union speech this year sent the nation into a snooze.

Pro: She’s female.

Con: Maybe too female. Some pundits are worried that she and Obama might look too much like a couple.

Overall, the national media are taking the prospect of an Obama-Sebelius ticket seriously, and Obama has done nothing to discourage the notion.

“I love Kathleen Sebelius,” he said recently. “I think she is as talented a public official as there is right now.”

Most analyses peg the Kansas Democrat an accomplished public servant who would bring minimal baggage to the campaign.

But the safe pick is a dangerous assumption.
There are two kinds of political baggage. One is the kind the candidate packs herself. In that regard Sebelius travels light.

Then there’s the baggage your enemies dump on you. And for that, Sebelius’ adversaries in the anti-abortion camp are fully loaded.

Go back to your Google search and, along with Sebelius’ name, type in the word “abortion.”

Here you’ll find a different kind of analysis.

“A vice president for abortion,” is the headline on a widely circulated column. An Internet site that describes itself as “dedicated to issues of culture, life and family” labels Sebelius as “the most extreme pro-abortion Catholic governor.”

These accusations are at best overblown and at worst blatantly false. They stem from frustration at Sebelius’ refusal to cooperate with right-wing groups and legislators who want to use unconstitutional measures to limit abortions and shut down a Wichita clinic that performs late-term abortions.

It would be nice to dismiss these allegations as the rantings of a few extremists. Polls show only a sliver of the electorate is preoccupied enough with abortion to use it as the sole basis of a voting decision.

But in the glare of a presidential race, Sebelius’ problems with the anti-abortion movement have the potential to blow up into a huge distraction.

Catholic networks have been spreading the word for months via Internet sites and newsletters that Sebelius is “anti-life.” They illustrate their case with photos of the governor, at a reception, standing alongside George Tiller, the physician who performs later-term abortions in Wichita.

If other conservative groups with church connections pick up on that kind of coverage, it’s not difficult to imagine a scenario in which a vote against an Obama-Sebelius ticket is portrayed as a religious obligation.

We saw a similar situation in Missouri, with the 2006 campaign to grant scientists in the state the freedom to practice all forms of stem-cell research permitted under federal law.

Early polls showed overwhelming support for a constitutional amendment protecting medical research. But conservative religious groups opposed the measure, and professional manipulators moved into the state with a dizzying barrage of spin and lies. (Millions of vulnerable women will be exploited for their reproductive eggs! Remember that one?)
The constitutional amendment passed by a hair, but the campaign was a case study in what happens when a political issue gets twisted into a religious crusade.

Who knows? Maybe Obama’s team and the national Democratic Party would be skilled enough to keep the focus on Sebelius as a moderate, pragmatic governor who stood up for clean air when her administration denied permits for construction of coal-fired energy plants in western Kansas last year.

Maybe Sebelius isn’t as serious a vice-presidential prospect as some of the pundits make her out to be.

But that business of the Kansas governor as a safe pick? It’s risky.

Barbara Shelly is a member of the Editorial Board. She can be reached at 816-234-4594 or at . She blogs at voice.KansasCity.com.