I’m still trying to get my head around the tactic of floating it now.
She sees the math as well as the rest of us. She can only get the nom with overwhelming super delegate support and if he keeps Pennsylvania close and wins where he is expected to then by overwhelmingly overwhelming super delegate support.
What could convince them to do that?
Well an extremely solid performance in Pennsylvania is enough to make the case that she can deliver the big states. In short it cuts the legs out from under those of us who see Obama able to inspire and deliver across the spectrum if he can’t mobilize enough to keep it at least neck and neck in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania. And that point would be before his next likely big wins so would be as close as she could get. Would possibly get her neck and neck in the popular vote at that point in time. A time when the powers that be will be getting increasingly desirous of avoiding a brokered convention that begins to loom.
Maybe she hopes that she is offering up a way to nominate her and not fracture the party irreparably to be considered at that point (if she gets there), else she takes it to the convention floor even if it brings the party down with her? And hoping that Obama would blink.
Alternatively she opens up a the back-up plan. If she wins Pennsylvania but narrowly then that would be a harder sell and she knows it but the threat of the brokered convention remains. Then she can offer herself for VP as the cost of backing down. 8 more years and then its hers, all hers!
It’s a somewhat sneaky way of reaching out to undecided Democrats. She’s trying to tell them that if they vote for her, they get two for the price of one - the best of both worlds, allegedly. And by pretending to take the high road and offering a way to end the primary conflict, perhaps she thinks she looks more presidential.
Obama can’t come out and say “Kiss my ass, I wouldn’t join that ticket,” so it’s kind of a freebie for her. In a sense I guess you could say she is trying to regain that “inevitability” thing by talking about potential VP choices.
I think she is trying to muscle her way onto Obama’s ticket as VP. Of course she has to couch the “dream ticket” as being with her on top, but I believe she is enough of a realist to know she is not going to get the nomination. She is sounding out a deal that would make her the VP nominee.
Her experience at 1st Lady doesn’t count for much, but nor does Obama’s experience as a local pol. But HRC has been in the Senate exactly twice as long as Obama has, thus has twice the National experience.
My feelings exactly. I think Obama is too savvy to be suckered into being a third wheel for the Clintons. I’d rather see him continue on in the Senate then have his hands tied for 4 years as VP.
If you guys have been keeping check on what Bill and Hillary have been saying, I’m willing to bet that she’s angling to become VP at this point. They’re both smart enough to realize that Obama is still quite enchanting, and that she has a less than even chance of winning the nomination in a way that will be good for the party.
Both Bill and Hillary are good party liners, so I feel like this is a natural and good strategic choice. Hillary was freaking made for the VP spot. She’s at least as scary as Cheney, in a democrat way.
Obama’s language regarding the Billary comments haven’t been entire dismissive either. He specifically says that it’s not being considered right now because he’s campaigning to be president and not VP. If Hillary’s willing to take VP, who can say?
I’m not so sure I buy that. I hate to fall back on a pretty fluffy criticism of Hillary, but I really do get the impression that she’s got too much pride to take that VP spot. If she had kept the attitude she displayed at the end of the Ohio debate I might agree with this, but she’s played way too hard since then.
People talk a lot about Hillary’s pride, and I sometimes feel like they cast it in a ridiculously negative light. Confidence in a women seems to strike a lot of people as oddball. Note, I’m not saying this about you, just some people in general who have also talked about her pride.
Personally, I think that a woman who can play second fiddle to Bill Clinton (a no-name from Hope, Arkansas) has a great deal of patience. Not only patience, but also the will power to execute both long and short-term strategic political moves. I think taking the VP spot would be a brilliant political move for the Clintons.
The VP is a powerful player. Sure, you might not drop hundreds of millions of dollars just to get VP, but if you were in the campaign and you saw that Obama stood a better than even chance at winning, wouldn’t you be willing to maximize your profits and minimize your losses? It seems like a step up to me. New York senator to VP (aka President of the Senate).
I always though Hillary would have left Bill over Monicagate except for her political ambitions. If Hillary is thought of in a negative light, its mostly her own fault. This VP thing seems so insincere I can hardly believe it came out of her campaign.
Don’t mistake the following comparison as a direct comparison between Obama and Lincoln but… Lincoln served 2 years in the US congress and 10 years in the Illinois congress before becoming POTUS.
President of the Senate basically means you can cast tie breaking votes and you are first in line of succession to the oval office. Hillary would be more powerful as a senator unless she saw the VP slot as a stepping stone to POTUS.
This ridiculousness cannot go away soon enough for me. A combined ticket will never, ever happen. And Barack Obama made that pretty damn clear today while campaigning in Mississippi.
Barack Obama will never offer Hillary Clinton the VP spot on his ticket. Even he agrees with President Clinton, the Vice President has to be ready to lead from Day Two, if Og forbid the President dies on inauguration day. Barack Obama does not believe Hillary Clinton is the right person to lead from Day One, why on earth would he intentionally put her in a position to lead from Day Two? He is not trying to separate himself from the politics of the past, only to drag it along with him on his ticket into the general election.
And since I’m not Obama, I don’t have to be as polite about giving Hillary any benefit that she may pull a win out of this election. She won’t. The numbers are impossible to overcome under any circumstances, and that includes praying the supers come out in force for her in the end. It’s a pipe dream for her and her supporters, so there is no need to discuss why Hillary Clinton would likewise never actually put Obama on her ticket, let alone why he would never accept.
Another data point, for those counting. I’ve voted Democrat in every election since 1992 (sat out 84 and 88), but I’m not voting for Hillary. I think Mc Cain is a more decent human being than Hillary, and that we would, in fact, be more warlike under Clinton.
Hillary, through her campaign tactics, has obviously pissed off the active and engaged side of the party–just another not-too-bright thing she’s done lately. The best thing for the party is for Clinton to go back to NY, today. Is she really gonna say to all of the high-energy Obama supporters, “No, you can’t.”? That can’t be good for the party.
I can’t understand Clinton’s offer to “let” Obama run as her Vice President. It was, at best, incredibly poor timing. By any objective standard, Obama is currently ahead of her in the nomination race. She can’t possibly believe he would voluntarily relinquish the lead to serve behind her.
So she came out of this looking desperate, which is not an image she needs at this point. Her offer to make him VP is an endorsement of his abilities. And coming after her recent campaign of questioning Obama’s readiness it makes her look hypocritical. What did she think she was going to gain out of this offer?
What makes it kind of funny in a sad kind of way is that you’d think someone in her position would be able to see what a bonehead play the VP slot was. But she didn’t and foresight hasn’t been a strong suit in her entire campaign.* Yet she’s going to be ready on day 1?*
If you throw out a million mini-controversies to the press, then you create an atmosphere of uncertainty and politics-as-usual surrounding both candidates. Since Clinton has been around longer, she comes out ahead in the eye of the undecided voter. I firmly believe that this is the goal of the kitchen-sink strategy- to convert enough undecideds in PA and nationwide back to a pre-Iowa way of thinking, so that an argument can be made to the superdelegates that the popular vote total is close or in her favor.