It is for many in the Obama camp an unthinkable thought. But politics is sometimes the art of adjusting today to what seemed inconceivable yesterday. I’m talking about the possibility ”” and the powerful logic ”” of a unity Obama-Clinton ticket for the Democrats.
I never thought I’d even consider it; but times change; politics shifts, and in the roiling flux of this American campaign, a bold unifying gesture could make the Democratic ticket ”” and an Obama presidency ”” unstoppable almost overnight. It’s still highly unlikely, but so was JF Kennedy running with Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan running with the first George Bush.
The rationale for a fusion ticket is the same as for any grand political compromise. Very few people in Washington believe that Barack Obama can now be denied the Democratic nomination. Even after the past month, as Hillary Clinton has hung in there, as the scandal about Jeremiah Wright (Obama’s firebrand cleric) scandal has battered the post-racial Obama brand, and as white Reagan Democrats have proven resistant to a new young black freshman senator, Obama has actually increased his number of delegates. Clinton simply cannot overcome the edge he built up in February and March, however cruel his April turned out to be. And the superdelegates ”” who will ultimately decide — have also been slowly trending his way.
The decision last week by the former Clintonite Democratic Party chairman, Joe Andrew, to switch from Clinton to Obama confirmed the super-delegate trend.
And the raw truth is: Clinton’s victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania and persistence in states such as North Carolina and Indiana, which vote this Tuesday, have kept Obama from closing the deal definitively. Worse: the demographics seem to be hardening into a difficult dynamic for him.
I don’t see this ever happening. The two big egos will cancel each other out.
A good idea in principle. The only way to make this work is to make Bill Clinton Secy of State and keep him on the road (ie: out of the White House) 24/7/365.
The question the Dems should be asking is whether in the general election, Obama can carrry the big states that Hillary won. I don’t think losing Texas (he will, anyway), Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida (those two would likely have gone for Hillary), etc would do much for the electoral college count.
Personally, I thought they came out of Pennsylvania with her looking a lot stronger. She looked like a fighter and he looked like an inexperienced, shallow elitist. He’s fading, to which inexperience tends to lead.
He may be fading, but he is the Democratic nominee. Marry in haste, repent at leisure. I am not a Democratic voter, but I can sympathize with Obama supporters who point out that, doggone it, he won the primaries, and should be nominated.
Why would Clinton want to be VP—even if she and Obama had the highest regard for each other?
Being a senator is more interesting—and she’s done all the right things (e.g., taking care of Republican-leaning constituents upstate and on Long Island) to make her seat safe.
Should she yearn for a new challenge, there’s a no-term-limits governor’s mansion in Albany.
I agree, Irenaeus, I can’t imagine her accepting the VP spot.
I’ll bet Clinton has had many dreams of a Clinton-Obama ticket. But dreams they will remain.
The United States really ought to do something, short of a constitutional amendment, to make the vice presidency more challenging and thus more attractive. One possibility might be to have the VP appointed and confirmed as secretary of one of the executive departments. (It constitutionally uncharted territory, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t be legal.)
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Most people aren’t aware of the extent to which Senate rules make the VP a figurehead in his capacity as president of the Senate. The VP cannot, for example, give a speech except by special permission of the Senate. He has no discretion about whom to recognize in debate. Some parliamentary-procedure questions get politicized but most follow precedent.
How turn the VP into a high-level dummy? VP John Adams actually tried to run the Senate, giving long, didactic speeches from the chair. Thomas Jefferson devised the Senate rules to put the quietus on Adams, and so they have remained.
The whole primaries circus is a ridiculous drawn-out affair. I’m sure a lot of people who voted one way in January would have changed their minds by June. It should all be done in the space of one month, preferably as late as possible so as much as possible can be aired befroe as many as possible. Suppose the Jeremiah Wright stuff had been properly aired in January? What then?
The only way I could see the Clintons accepting the VP spot is if she got to cook Obama’s meals and Bill got to service his car.
It seems that those desparate for the democrats to win are desparate to find a way to avoid the coming train wreck of a fight up to the convention.
Wouldn’t it be funny if the SuperDelagates took Rush’s advice and nominated an entirely different candidate than these two? 🙂