Putting personal biases aside, Obama has two important questions to ask in determining whether to invite Hillary (as it seems she wants it) to be his vice presidential nominee.
1) Can she help him win? and
2) Can she help him govern?
In both cases, and considering the race as it stands now, I think the answer is yes (and it is hard for me to say that as someone who has bashed Hillary a lot this year, but ultimately has come to respect her gifts). The first question is the more difficult because it involves weighing the need to keep Hillarycrats firmly inside the tent versus the potential for an Obama-Hillary ticket to magnify the baggage each candidate carries individually. Obama also needs to consider whether Clinton on the ticket could potentially turn-off some of the independents who don’t like partisan politics as usual and see Clinton as more of the same. Tough call. But, on balance today (and I may change my mind), I think if Hillary wants the veep spot, then Obama is hard pressed not to offer it to her.
As for helping govern, Hillary bring loads of policy experience to the table and bags of energy – if channelled well she’d be a great asset. Having her in your White House could only help.
I guess the last thing Obama should want to know (and maybe most important to him personally), is whether Hillary can park her own ambitions and dedicate herself to making his campaign and Administration as good as it can be, and to making him the first great president of the 21st century. I heard some quote from Terry McAuliffe, who is today pushing quite hard on the Hillary for veep meme, that if Obama-Clinton form a ticket the party will have a lock on the White House for 16 years. Not what I’d want to hear if I’m Obama. If Hillary comes aboard, it must be first and foremost about winning in November and changing America thereafter. Hillary’s electoral ambitions must be subsumed by those goals. If that can happen, then this so-called “dream-ticket” could work.
She would hurt his chances of winning for several reasons:
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p>1. She’d muddle his message because hers is so different, and well established in the public mind. He needs a running mate who fits into his established message.
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p>2. She’s a bad “second fiddle”, and would overshadow him at times. They wouldn’t work well together in such an environment.
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p>3. She campaigned against him in ways a little too pointed and mean-spirited at times, giving Republicans a great opportunity to run footage of some of her most ill-advised comments as TV ads if she were his running mate (like the one where she seems to suggest that McCain is more qualified than Obama, even if she doesn’t actually believe that).
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p>4. She’s set up a public perception and context where if he does pick her, people would believe she bullied him into it, thus making him seem weak.
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p>Horrible combination, and she adds nothing to the ticket that other choices couldn’t.
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p>As for helping him govern: There are several places she could do that from, including the Senate and his cabinet. Being VP wouldn’t put her into a better position to help him govern than some of those other places.
Maybe you should get used to making decisions?
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Not only do I agree with him that she’d be bad at helping the team govern, overshadow him at some points, give the GOP great ammunition, and be unable to curb her own ambition I also feel adding her to the ticket is electoral poision.
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p>The white working class support is a myth. Obama carried those voters in more states and with more votes than Hillary Clinton did. She bested him in only three places: Appalachia, rustbelt states, and states with big Latino populations. There are three reasons for each one.
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p>Appalachia-Honestly if you look at exit polling race was a huge deal for these places. W. Virginia has elected Klansmen to the Senate, ignoring that the same Klansman endorsed Obama this is a state with a troubled racial history and most voters there said they weren’t ready. This was even more true in KT.
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p>Rustbelt-Obama is very much a pro free trade Democrat. From such advisors as Samantha Powers and my own instituions Austin Goolsbee Obama clearly had a pro free trade agenda and his populist rhetoric was seen as just that-rhetoric. In spite of the fact that Clinton helped push NAFTA through she was still seen as more genuinely anti-trade and that is because her advisors and her votes fit that mold more perfectly. She beat him there because of trade issues. In a general vs McCain the issue will be moot on most working class Dems will turn to Obama since he still offers the bread and butter on domestic economics.
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p>Latino-Here is a community that has not historically gotten along with blacks and also has very high favorables of Bill Clinton. Here Obama dropped the ball. They should’ve tried Spanish outreach, Spanish ads, and prominent Latino endorsements a lot earlier than the did. The Clintons actually out manned Obama on the grassroots here. When I campaigned in IA we were lucky enough to have a Spanish speaker in our group, the Clinton campaign actually hired them to man phones and sought out Spanish seeking volunteers. We were simply outbeat here.
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p>So I don’t feel Hillary brings that many people to the table. if you look at most state by state polls Hillary currently maintains a lead in all sorts of southern and rustbelt states-a lead sure to evaporate in a general election since these dark red states will stay red. Additionally since these states Democratic voters, the ones that actually voted for Hillary, are more conservative they voted for her and they do not represent the sample size of the electorate that outweighs the Dems in these parts.
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p>Obama though does a lot better out west and in the middle west where the real battlegrounds are. When moderate Republicans and independents tired of this war, tired of theocracy, tired of all the things Bush has wrought see McCain as more right wing an ungenuine than his past image and see Obama as the hope of the future-these places could be swept. Im talking CO, NM, IA, NV, and even MT, NB, and the Dakotas, even TX-all in play. So Hillary jeopardizes those gains without bringing other people in.
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p>What Obama needs is a white male version of Hillary Clinton whose last name is not Clinton-Im thinking Bayh or Webb-to appeal to her supporters without alienating independents.
The Democratic race is over. Obama won. I agree it is time for all of us to begin to unite around our Democratic nominee. And as an ardent Clinton supporter, that’s what I intend to do.
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p>But how is all of this continued Clinton-bashing helpful:
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p>From reading your post, one would be led to believe that Hillary Clinton only got votes from Appalachian racists who vote for Ku Klux Klansmen and from Latinos who have “not historically gotten along with blacks”. Oh yeah, and she won in the Rustbelt only because of trade issues. Give me a break.
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p>A lot of us, including a pretty large majority of Democrats in Massachusetts, voted for Hillary Clinton because we felt that she was the very best in an outstanding field of Democratic candidates. We liked her experience, we liked her record in the Senate, we liked the issues she was raising.
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p>And for you to say
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p>is simply not borne out by the facts.
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p>In fact, I was looking at all of the final polls at Real Clear Politics today, and not that it matters anymore, but as of yesterday, Hillary Clinton’s national head-to-head margin over John McCain is greater than Sen. Obama’s. And so is her Electoral Count margin. Your electoral analysis is disputed by the facts.
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p>Hillary Clinton is the strongest runner-up in the history of American Democratic politics. Personally, I hope she doesn’t join the ticket as the Vice Presidential candidate. I think she could be more effective elsewhere. But Sen. Obama would be lucky to have her.
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Obama should not feel obligated to pick Hillary. He should offer her the job if he thinks she is the best person for the job and someone who will work well for him and his administration. And if she wants it, she shouldn’t play games about it.
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p>Obama may need Hillary but not at any price. She shouldn’t put him in a position where to put her on the ticket he is made to look like he’s kissing the rings. This isn’t a dating game, where both candidates wait for the other to make the call.