A friend of mine, a young, sharp, sophisticated lawyer with experience in matters politics and political just asked me by e-mail if I thought it was possible that should Hillary win she'd offer Obama the VP slot.
Yes, I do think that's possible. If Hillary wins the nomination (believe me, I aint counting chickens!), she will realize that she doesn't inspire much passion, with the possible exception of single women. She knows she's light on charisma. She knows that Obama has charisma and inspires passion, big time. The experience arguments she's made against him count much less as a vice. It would be a somewhat risky choice, as she's a control freak, and he will NOT be a puppet that just does what he's told (as Bill Richardson, who I suspect is her first choice, would). But even if she wins the nomination, Obama will have given her a hell of a run for her money and will have a lot of support. I think picking him as vice and assuring him a real profile in a Clinton administration (which will be very difficult b/c of Bill), would REALLY bring the party together and inspire. The party will rally behind whoever wins, that's not a concern, but having Obama would greatly add to the passion meter. Two last points:
1) I'm just guessing here, but I think Bill would LOVE to have Obama as vice. He'd figure that with 4/8 years of his/Hillary's and other people's training he WOULD be ready to be president, and maybe a great one.
2) Gore was weird, at least in public. Lieberman was weird (imho). Kerry was weird! Ok, Edwards was not. Clinton is weird. It would be VERY VERY nice to have a reasonably normal human being on the ticket. Obama is certainly that, by which I mean he's not weird. I imagine Hillary will make sure that her vice isn't someone strange, but instead is someone that normal people can relate to. Its a minor point, as the vice presidential pick sways few, but its worth mentioning.
6 comments:
Danny
(a) Who will win in S. Carolina
for Dems
(b) Who for Republicans
Beats me Larry. As I have said, predicting the future is hard. Especially when it hasn't happened yet. And I'm particularly bad at it.
If I HAD to guess, Obama and Huckabee. I give McCain a better chance of winning on the GOP side than Clinton on the dem side, but she could win. Thompson will finish a disappointing 3rd and presumably drop out (did he ever really enter the race?)
I've read that Evan Bayh is near the top of the list as Hilary's potential running mate. I also read that Richardson has had too many "gaffes" during his primary run to get picked for VP. Not sure what those gaffes were, but they were enough to cause a loss of confidence in him as a running mate.
I think Hilary picking Obama would be an inspired choice. But I don't think the reverse would be true. I just don't see Obama picking Hilary. Hey, constitutional question? Could he pick Bill? :0) Seriously, I would think Obama would pick somebody with serious foreign policy chops, such as Joe Biden.
Bill cannot be elected president, thus he cannot be named Vice President. There is no specific provision of the constitution I don't think that explicitly says that, but that is what everyone understands. Could a non natural-born US citizen be Vice President? Makes no sense.
As for Bayh, he'd be a very solid choice. Obama would, as Bryan said, be inspired.
well, I think I'd like a Hilary/Obama ticket. We'd get the black vote, the woman vote, both would be good speakers, and 8 years as Veep would solve Obama's experience issues. Also, Obama is young enough that after 8 years of Hilary, he could then be president for 8 years and still leave the presidency younger than McCain is now. That would be a nice 16 years of blue party rule.
As for Bayh, the last time we had a senator from Indiana in the Veep seat, everybody spent 4 years arguing over how to spell potatoe.
LOL Bryan.
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