Well, that’s certainly a good point, and I have no objective proof whatsoever to back me up on this, but I actually don’t think that would hurt him near enough to cost him the VP nod. First off, I think there’s a pretty big difference between what kind of “skeletons in the closet” a VP candidate can get away with as opposed to the headliner. Could Cheney have run for President? It would have been unthinkable.
And secondly, I feel like there’s a limit to the downside here. In the end, everyone’s going to have to decide between Obama and McCain… or just stay home. Would that quote make anyone vote for McCain? Even if you decided that Webb was an unacceptable sexist, would that keep a significantly large number of women from voting for Obama? Sure, maybe, I don’t get paid to know these things, but if I’m making a score-sheet for Webb, it still seems like his Pros outweigh his Cons by a pretty solid margin.
Personally I’d want it to be Richardson, but I think he’s destined for Secretary of State.
It still isn’t impossible for Hillary to become the VP. The critical part bit would be for her to show that she is ready to be the foot soldier, not a co-President, and do what she is told and to very loudly and very often tell her forces to cease and desist with the attempt to pressure her onto the ticket and to instead respect that the nominee - Mr. Obama - needs to take his time deciding on his choice. Bill would have to understand that he is to stay out of the White House and to keep his mouth shut. Her actions until August could help him decide if she is capable of playing that role.
I doubt those things are very likely, but they may not be impossible.
He can’t wait until August, really. While the party will usually defer to the nominee on VP choice at the convention, that doesn’t happen without prior discussion. I can’t imagine that Obama can just spring it on the party leadership without letting them know his decision and listening to their concerns.
But Obama doesn’t need to convince Democratic voters at this point, particularly not Democratic voters from states like New York and California. He needs to win over unaffiliated voters–who are about 25% of the overall electorate–particularly in “purple” states. Clinton would not be the person most likely to appeal to those folks.
You may be right burundi though I’ve often heard it said (whether truly or not I don’t know) that in national elections the party that wins is the one most successful in mobilizing its own base.
I’m not trying to argue that Obama’s success absolutely relies on HRC as VP (I lack that kind of crystal ball!). On the other hand, broader-strategy-wise here is something to think about (not being remotely qualified in statistics or astrophysics I have no idea if this isn’t utter BS).
Democratic base-wise I think it’s important for the really committed Obama partisans on this thread to realize just how much HRC’s campaign has meant to people, especially women voters. Also from the NYT, here is a blog they publish which hardly ever hits their most emailed list but which became the #1 on it just a few hours after being written. What it and some other stuff I’ve been reading suggests to me is that HRC supports feel that their candidate has been dissed and roughed up because of who she is; they identify with her pain.
Although obviously these voters aren’t reading this thread, perhaps making this forum irrelevant to the greater political picture, the kind of demonization of HRC that I’ve noticed in these boards (which has really surprised me given that I’ve been reading the Straight Dope for years, including during the Clinton years when few non-Republicans were rabidly critical of the White House) is what I think has really alienated these voters.
In any case, as several posters have already said, I think it’s time for the Obama base of the Democratic party to change the channel and focus on the real prize. That’s my opinion of course.
I know that’s traditionally been true, but I think it may be changing. The number of unaffiliated voters is growing faster than the number of Democrats or Republicans. And I think the electoral map is changing. My own state, North Carolina, while traditionally staunchly conservative, is trending more moderate as time goes on. I absolutely agree that Obama needs to mobilize the base as well; however, I think he can do that without putting Clinton on the ticket.
I agree with you that Clinton’s campaign has been tremendously important to many, many women voters. And it is inspiring to me that a woman can be a serious contender for prez. One thing that really, really bothers me, though–and I’m not picking on you, Dorothea, more on the* NY Times*, which ought to know better–is that when folks say “women,” they mean “white women.” African American women were more likely to vote for Obama in the primaries. I haven’t heard much about Latinas or Asian-American women at all. I just wish that the media would make it clearer that they’re discussing one segment of women, not all American women.
I spent a lot of time on the Clinton Website after her decision to endorse Obama. Many women feel betrayed by the DNC and by Obama himself, saying they will switch their party affiliation to Independant and vote for McCain. That is not a political decision as much as an emotional one. But the pure vitriol coming form these women is hard to read. To some it appears that voting for McCain because Clinton did not get the nomination looks decidedly unpolitical, and the exact opposite of what Clinton herself would want. So if they were supporting Clinton and are now going to vote McCain, what does that tell us about their reasons for supporting HRC in the first place - if they weren’t political reasons what were they?
If women are concerned with women’s rights, and getting a woman in the white house then for heaven’s sake don’t vote McCain. A vote for McCain, would lead to a Supreme Court that would overturn the victories veteran feminists secured in the '60s and the '70s, including the right to an abortion. I hope women soon realize this before casting their ballot for McCain.*
Having said that, I think there are a number of observers who have watched her over the past eight years and seen her do and say any number of stupid things. Many of which have been in her recent campaign for the nomination.
FWIW, I’m a conservative sort, who was disappointed when she got elected to be my junior Senator. As such I’ve paid some more attention to her follow-through on campaign promises than I think many people have considered or factored in.
Some of the stupid things she’s said, prior to this campaign season, include promising to increase jobs in upstate NY by 200,000. (This was back during her 2000 Senatorial campaign.) Not only have those jobs not appeared, but the area has continued to lose jobs since she was elected. Now, part of this is certainly for reasons beyond her control - but she’s also smart enough to know and understand the economic and social reasons that upstate is on the decline. And she chose to make that promise anyway. It may be a small thing on it’s own, but it, and similar statements from her (promises or comments about programs she backed that were misleading or contrary to fact) show what seems to me to be a pattern of being willing to say anything that will advance her chances of being elected.
No matter how accurate they might be, or whether she has any real chance to follow through with them.
Which leaves me with a quandary: What’s going on with this very intelligent woman who keeps saying these stupid things? IMNSHO, it’s indicative of an ambition that is so great she will say or do anything to get what she wants.
Which is a modus operandi that I think Obama has rejected in his own person, and a pattern of business as usual that he wishes to distance himself from. One of the things that has most positively influenced those people who support Obama is the perception that a vote for him will not be a vote for business as usual in Washington.
Adding Hillary to his ticket would undermine that perception, I believe. Especially in light of her faux pass these past several months.
Won’t change how I’m planning to vote, mind you - barring some kind of demonic revelation between now and November there’s no way I’ll vote for John McCain. I didn’t vote for Obama in the primaries, for all that I hoped he would win, because I refuse to join either major political party.
In addition to what burundi already said about the unaffiliated voters, I simply don’t think having Hillary on the ticket is necessary or even desirable to motivate people to vote. I find it hard to believe that the amount of registered Democrats who will abstain in November because Hillary is not on the ticket will exceed the number that will abstain because she is. The population that is threatening to stay home if she’s not on the ticket are people who are involved in the political process already. They’re going to vote anyway. And Obama has 5 months to win them over. As we’ve seen, the more people get to know Obama, the more they get to like him, and even the staunchest Hillary supporters are likely, in the end, to say “Well, I guess I like Obama too.”
(I see on preview what Phlosphr said about how the people threatening to vote for McCain because Hillary’s not on the ticket are making an emotional decision, not a political/logical one. I totally agree. They’re pissed off right now. They’ll get over it.)
The two things are not mutually exclusive.
I’m a woman and a feminist. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to me that a woman has been a serious presidential candidate. I agree that she has been “dissed and roughed up” because of who she is, and a lot of that is based on her gender. I definitely identify with her.
Nevertheless, I feel she is not the right candidate for 2008. And I think Obama is.
It’s ten years later and it’s a different Clinton. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Well, that’s what we’ve been trying to do!
It’s Hillary who insisted on prolonging the “primary race” long after it was apparent to everyone that she couldn’t win. And even now, she’s doing what she can to keep the focus on herself and not doing her best to help win the “real prize.”
Sorry to quote myself here, but I just want to clarify this a bit, since the thread is about a HRC vice-presidency, not a presidency.
A lot of the things that made her “not the right candidate” for the presidency also make her a poor choice for the vice-presidency, both in terms of the election and the administration to follow.
And as much as I’d be thrilled to vote for a woman for either office, in the end, I refuse to cast a vote primarily based on gender. I won’t deny that I consider being female a “pro” for any candidate, but it is just one of many factors to consider, and a minor one at that.
It bothers me too, burundi though I’m not sure that either Latina women or Asian-American women Democrats haven’t been among those to feel strongly pro-Hilllary (certainly as I’m sure you know Obama’s relatively weak support among Latinos has been a subject of much discussion and I wish I knew more about how it played out along gender lines).
I’m not sure if you read The Nation at all, but early on in the primary Patricia Williams, one of my favorite columnists and a law professor who is African-American, spoke in favor of a joint Obama-Clinton ticket with whomever came out #1 in the #1 slot. That was before Hillary’s campaign (and Bill) muddied themselves with some very dissapointing strategies–I’m not sure how Williams feels about her any more. But consider these excerpts from a really interesting recent column by Katha Pollit, also a Nation columnist.
*"I don’t claim Clinton lost because she’s a woman. (I think it was her Iraq vote, which she could never justify or renounce; assorted strategic mistakes; the bumptious interventions of her husband; and, most of all, that Barack Obama, a prodigiously gifted, charismatic politician, took the banner of change away from her.) The attacks on her may even have helped by making women voters identify with her. In New Hampshire, pols’ and pundits’ sexist mockery of her “misting” made women rally to her side and revitalized her campaign.
Now those women, not all white and not all working class, are on the political map, and so are the issues that made them identify with Clinton: the glass ceiling and the sticky floor, the inequality built into marriage and family life, sexual harassment and assault, lack of support for caring work–paid or unpaid–and, underlying them all, a fundamental lack of respect that over the years can make a woman feel fed up to here. …[M]illions of ordinary women–white, Latino and black–saw their struggles mirrored in hers."*
Green Bean it’s partly for the above reasons that I think that many women (and other HRC supporters) will want more recognition for her governing potential that you seem ready to give her, at least in this race. Mind you, I’m not saying that you’re not entitled to your position or that it isn’t a coherent and principled position (the same goes for Philospher, Otaku and other posters). What I’m suggesting is that you seem to me to be represent a core of Barak enthusiasts who have been very important to his rise but who must now if he is to seal the deal, be joined by other less energized Democrats as well as by independent voters some of whom will have been for Hillary and others of whom may be simply be undecided or indifferent as yet. So while your principled positions are worthy I’m not sure how reflective they are of the more general psyche among Democrats and independents–setting aside the truly inflamed feelings of Hillary supporters. Perhaps it really is a new playing field with the kind of differences burundi notes. But what if not?
So when I say that Barak-enthusiasts might want to step back and be mindful of the prize I’m suggesting that there might be some value in seeing things from the perspective of these other important voting consituencies. There is no longer any reason to fear that Hillary isn’t stepping aside: she is now clearly doing so and supporting Obama as she does.
To be sure, one might still not wish to compromise one’s principles under any circumstances. It may well be that too much rapprochement with Hillary (such as VP position) will alienate Obama supporters who see him as a force for change. But it might also be that rapprochement will be strategically effective–and perhaps critical.
In the meantime, I’d be delighted to see Hillary get more respect (for all her many mistakes and flaws) with less evidence of the old double standard at work. (I don’t mean however that any of the posters I’ve named are guilty of this double standard–not at all. )
She had almost the same popular vote as Obama, and in some counts, more. Obama did not win by a landslide. So, she was within 1/10 of 1% of being t*he right candidate.
*
And she balances the ticket perfectly- in states and groups of voters where Obama is weak, she is strong.
Now I’ll admit she has baggage, but she’s worth considering.
I’ve definitely suspected that, but I wish there had been more coverage of it, too. It seems like the media are content to say “Women support Clinton” without examining which women and why, which I think is a very interesting question.
Uhm, wow. Thank you. :o I really appreciate the positive feedback. I think this election is too important not to be both educated and enthusiastic about it.
Dorothea Book, I just want to say that I hope you will become a registered member once your guest membership expires. Your input and perspective are valuable to us all. Welcome.
Thanks Shayna for your very kind words. If I end up not registering it will only be because I’m usually too busy–but it would really nice to carve out some time.
Okay. After having made my reasoned arguments against Hillary in the VP spot, I am now going to backtrack some. That was some fine ‘nuff speechifyin’ she did yesterday and her surrogates are now playing the right tune: she doesn’t particularly seek the office; it is Obama’s decision to make and his alone; but if he decides that her running as VP would be of help she would be willing to serve. Anything to help defeat McCain. Let assume she means that.
If she could convince him that she will be vigorous in making her case as part of his team but obedient once a decision has been made; if she can prove that she won’t be a loose cannon or a rival for power within the White House; if they can actually get along and develop good chemistry; if it is understood that Bill is only there when invited and otherwise sticks to his charitable works and making money with speeches; then it could be a good combo after all. Once they are not demanding it, it can be considered. Once it would be a choice because he might want to, but not because he somehow needs to, it can be done without potentially weakening his control over the party.
Even Bill would bring something to it, if he could be kept from running his mouth off and just do what he is told. His campaigning in Appalachia in particular (visiting all those small towns again) would help put some states in play that right now are awfully big reaches.
Yes, the negatives are still there. It can mobilize the Rush-Right like nobody’s business. Some who might otherwise stay home might come out just to vote against her on the ticket. It goes a bit against the break with the past narrative by going with a Clinton. But the positives may very be greater after all if the climate for the decision is right.