“There’s no doubt that she’s qualified to be vice-president; there’s no doubt she’s qualified to be president,” he said.

Wrong. And wrong.
She’s only qualified to apologize to America for all the illegal, unethical, underhanded and deceitful crap she’s been pulling since the 1970s.

Gerald Pomper argues Obama should pick Virginia Senator Jim Webb to be his running mate. The panel on Fox News’ Special Report last night thinks Clinton’s VP chances are slim to none. Only Charles Krauthammer gave her a 10% chance. Ed Morrissey ment…

She will continue to play the race card against Obama until November, whether she is the nominee or not. Her last chance is 2012.

pedestrian on May 9, 2008 at 11:08 AM

It’s been Obama playing the race card. Hillary’s just telling the truth about election returns….and about the Jeremiah Wright stuff and how it effects the electorate.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I think Hillary has completely suckered Obama. She has sub-optimized after realizing quite a while ago that she isn’t going to be the Democratic nomineee.

Of course Obama is going to offer her the VP. He has zero choice now, there is nobody else that will bring in the voters Hillary is winning in the big states. This was the whole point of her campaign since Super Tuesday.

I agree with the first part of your post, but disagree with the second. I think it’s 50/50 on whether she accepts the job offer. It may even be 65/35 in favor of her taking the VP offer, which is why you’ve heard less acrimony from both campaigns for a few days.

The Clintons and their operatives have been the alpha dogs of the Democratic Party for the past 16 years. It’s almost impossible to see Hillary, Bill, Wolfson, Ickes, Blumenthal, etc. suddenly becoming subservient to Obama and his strategists, unless Barak is willing to throw David Axlerod and his crew under the bus and put his trust in the Clinton people.

(On the other hand, if they did and actually were to win the election, watching the Clinton people try to wrest power from the Obama folks when it came to setting behind-the-scenes policy and the prominence of Bill and Hillary in the Obama administration would be like watching four years of the most violent episodes of “The Sopranos”. Fun on a mindless level of schadenfreude for conservatives, but a disaster for the country with possible life-threatening consequences.)

jon1979 on May 9, 2008 at 10:53 AM

No joke, if it weren’t for the Supreme Court I might even root for that just for the sheer entertainment value.

I think there will be an elaborate dance here, in which Obama will sort of offer Hillary the VP slot and she will “magnanimously decline it so he can pick someone he really wants to work with,” yadda yadda yadda. In reality neither one wants it, but they are going to be forced to pretend that they do in order to mollify Hillary’s big donors and supporters. Then Hillary is going to do everything she can to sabotage Obama and make sure he loses.

One thing we all know about the Clintons is that they do not give a damn about the Democratic Party. Hillary will never accept second billing “for the good of the party” and she won’t care if John McCain is elected for a single term. She may very well go back to the Senate and get herself elected Majority Leader, which beats the hell out of Vice President anyway.

Of course Obama is going to offer her the VP. He has zero choice now, there is nobody else that will bring in the voters Hillary is winning in the big states. This was the whole point of her campaign since Super Tuesday.

And she is very noisily going to turn it down, and then do everything she can to sabotage Obama in the general. She knows he isn’t going to win in November and she won’t be part of it. After this he’ll be done and she’ll be the presumptive nominee in 2012. Clintons do not do second place.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Gotta disagree that a VP Clinton nomination would be a shrewd move. She doesn’t bring any new or different voters to the ticket and, as the ultimate Washington insider, she works against Obama’s riff that he is something different.

Ah, there’s the rub. Both candidates are far to the left of the American Mainstream and both have the same Teacher/Mentor in Saul Alinsky. Both candidates loathe each other as only True-Believing Socialists can hate The Enemy. Letting Comrade Obama play his riff while Comrade Clinton does her helps The Cause.

Election of a combined Obama/Clinton ticket transcends baggage and history; in effect granting forgiveness for all the little ‘Oooopsies’ in the past. Both get a ‘Clean Slate’. Comrade Obama, as a new face and ‘Hope’ can become the public face while Comrade Clinton plays in the back alleys as the Power Behind the Curtain.

(On the other hand, if they did and actually were to win the election, watching the Clinton people try to wrest power from the Obama folks when it came to setting behind-the-scenes policy and the prominence of Bill and Hillary in the Obama administration would be like watching four years of the most violent episodes of “The Sopranos”. Fun on a mindless level of schadenfreude for conservatives, but a disaster for the country with possible life-threatening consequences.)

Janet Napolitano

I can see the derisory slurs now : Afro Tutti Frutti

Obama needs to work the opposite direction and get moderates and independent conservatives who (like me) thinks the GOP blew it when they selected a divisive bitter candidate like McCain.
highhopes on May 9, 2008 at 10:20 AM

We can protest McCain up until the convention, but once we have a nominee we need to support that nominee (unless that nominee picks a Democrat VP, then all bets are off). We simply cannot let Obama pick Supreme Court Justices.

Considering how many of Bill and Hillary’s friends have met an ‘untimely demise’ there is no way I would consider Hillary as a running mate.

When the only thing that stands between a Clinton and the Presidency is my death…

True, nobody has proven the Clintons were responsible for any of the deaths of the reported 200+ people, with a Clinton connection, that suffered an ‘untimely demise’. Nevertheless, it is unwise to place one’s self in the cross hairs.

The Rock on May 9, 2008 at 10:00 AM

Many people have posted similar comments. I agree. At this point, I think there is a high probability that Clinton will “Vince Foster” Barack Obama. And it is more likely now than later. If Barack were to pick someone other than Hillary as his VP running mate, then taking out Obama would not guarantee Hillary the P slot…the Dem party may give it to the person Obama picked to be his VP.

If Hillary were to act now, she’d likely be the Dem Presidential nominee because she would redirect suspicion from herself to the “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”. But take note that Republicans have no need to “Vince Foster” Barack Obama…we will beat him fair and square in November, thank you very much.

SeniorD on May 9, 2008 at 10:06 AM

Gotta disagree that a VP Clinton nomination would be a shrewd move. She doesn’t bring any new or different voters to the ticket and, as the ultimate Washington insider, she works against Obama’s riff that he is something different.

Cranky old bastard is clearly working to get the “moderate” Democrats repulsed by the party’s leftist offerings. Obama needs to work the opposite direction and get moderates and independent conservatives who (like me) thinks the GOP blew it when they selected a divisive bitter candidate like McCain. Hillary is like garlic to vampires when it comes to attracting this group.

The man wheels and deals his associations with Wright, Ayers, Rezko……this will just be another deal. Denver is going to be a girlscout jamboree instead of Chicago68.

Just ask Algor. Sitting helplessly by while Hillary took his White House office, both literally and figuratively, was the worst humiliation of his entire life (not counting his many self-inflicted humiliations).

Hate to open an old conspiracy theory; however, here it goes.
1. When Ron Browns plane went down in Bosnia they sent three teams of experts to search for the flight data recorder. (One each from Boeing, USAF & NTSB)
2. It is assumed that these experts would know what a flight data recorder looks like (orange in color and nothing like a tape recorder).
3. They found it. It is expected that the person who found the flight data recorder would not keep it a secret (allowing everyone else to continue searching for it) but would loudly announce the find and everyone else would come running to see it.
4. I doubt that Boeing would send a team of experts to look for something that did not exist. The aircraft was a military version of the Boeing 737. Every 737 gets a flight data recorder, I know, I am a Boeing engineer.
5. The flight data recorder was sent to Germany for analysis.
6. When it got to Germany the Airforce said it was not a flight data recorder, but a tape recorder. The also stated that the 737 did not have a flight data recorder.

(This is where I scream Bull Crap!)

7. Phil Condit, the Boeing CEO at the time, was supposed to be on that airplane but was detained by a White House staffer in NYC (according to an article published in the Boeing News, the company newspaper).

8. Boeing was in a position to contest the governments assertion that the 737 did not have a flight data recorder. If the Boeing CEO had gone down there was a good possibility that Boeing would not have played along.

Was Ron Brown murdered? I don’t know.
I do know that we have not been told the truth.

How do you spell coverup?

> At its core, the so-called “dream ticket”
> doesn’t do anything to enhance Obama’s chances.

Yes it does. It negates the sore loser contingent, which is potentially significant.

Beo on May 9, 2008 at 9:38 AM

I have to agree with Beo, at least mostly. I would drop the “potentially”, however. Given there isn’t going to be a healing on our side of the aisle, all they’ll have to do to win is put their house of cards back together.