Obama-Clinton, a hate-filled dream ticket

The Times of London ^ | May 4, 2008 | Andrew Sullivan

[2ndDivisionVet]

It is for many in the Obama camp an unthinkable thought. But politics is sometimes the art of adjusting today to what seemed inconceivable yesterday. I'm talking about the possibility — and the powerful logic — of a unity Obama-Clinton ticket for the Democrats.

I never thought I'd even consider it; but times change; politics shifts, and in the roiling flux of this American campaign, a bold unifying gesture could make the Democratic ticket — and an Obama presidency — unstoppable almost overnight. It's still highly unlikely, but so was JF Kennedy running with Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan running with the first George Bush.

The rationale for a fusion ticket is the same as for any grand political compromise. Very few people in Washington believe that Barack Obama can now be denied the Democratic nomination. Even after the past month, as Hillary Clinton has hung in there, as the scandal about Jeremiah Wright (Obama's firebrand cleric) scandal has battered the post-racial Obama brand, and as white Reagan Democrats have proven resistant to a new young black freshman senator, Obama has actually increased his number of delegates. Clinton simply cannot overcome the edge he built up in February and March, however cruel his April turned out to be. And the superdelegates — who will ultimately decide -- have also been slowly trending his way.

The decision last week by the former Clintonite Democratic Party chairman, Joe Andrew, to switch from Clinton to Obama confirmed the super-delegate trend.

And the raw truth is: Clinton's victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania and persistence in states such as North Carolina and Indiana, which vote this Tuesday, have kept Obama from closing the deal definitively. Worse: the demographics seem to be hardening into a difficult dynamic for him. White working-class women — crucial to Democratic marginal states — remain resistant to his charms. Hispanics are also iffier than they should be. Somehow, the Clintons' brutal assault on his brand, aided and abetted by conservative media outlets, such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, have managed to dent this unifier a little.

That, of course, is why so many in the Democratic party are furious at the Clintons. The only way Hillary can now win is by tearing down the Obama candidacy even further — a candidacy that has brought more new voters, more money and more enthusiasm into Democratic ranks than at any time since 1992. If she were somehow to persuade the superdelegates to pick her over the obvious favourite of primary voters, she would provoke an implosion in the party, brutal payback from young, black and independent Obama fans, and a real crisis at the Democratic convention.

So what is she up to and what is Obama to do about it? There are three main theories behind Clinton's refusal to acquiesce to mathematics: she simply cannot tolerate losing a nomination she believes she has a dynastic right to; she is trying to ensure that Obama loses in 2008 in order to run again herself in 2012; or she wants to be offered the vice-presidential spot on an Obama-led ticket. I'm beginning to suspect the last option is the most plausible, and it gives Obama a potential opening: why not give her what she wants? An Obama-Clinton ticket would certainly give the Democrats a massive sigh of relief — and perhaps some euphoria.

The conservative white voters that Clinton has amazingly managed to attract could be combined with the massive infusion of new young votes, internet money, and African-American enthusiasm to create a potential tsunami in the election. Instead of having to pick between the first black president and the first woman president, the Democrats could offer voters both: the first black president and first female vice-president. Worries about Obama's relative youth and lack of Washington experience would be allayed by the presence of the Clintons. The toxicity of the Clinton baggage could be balanced by the hope Obama has inspired.

The Clintons could be deployed to shore up support in some of the Reagan Democrat states, while Obama wins over enough independents to carry the Mountain West and the upper Midwest. California, Ohio, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania could be secured. The downside? They hate each other. Over this campaign, Obama's supporters, along with many others, have been taken aback by the raw, unprincipled bare-knuckle politics that the Clintons have unleashed against the greatest talent to emerge in national politics since Bill Clinton himself. Moreover, the core appeal of Obama has been that he isn't a Clinton; he hasn't capitulated to the zero-sum politics of Karl Rove, George W Bush's mastermind. His outreach to new and young and non-Democratic voters has been premised on an end to the kind of politics the Clintons represent. When I raised the idea of an Obama-Clinton ticket on my blog last week, Obama-supporting readers were outraged and offended. I can see why. I defer to nobody in my contempt and suspicion of the Clintons.

And yet I can also see that the new politics Obama represents has provoked a ferocious backlash from the established political class; and his weakness (as well as his appeal) as a candidate is his reluctance to engage in the kind of street-fighting that politics can sometimes — and must sometimes — become. By picking Clinton as a vice-president, he would be pulling a classic American manoeuvre — getting a surrogate to do the dirty pugilism of the campaign, while using his own extraordinary skills to provide a unifying and uplifting overall theme. Picking Clinton would also defuse genuine concerns among older voters that he is just too green to be entrusted with presidential power just yet.

Remember Kennedy-Johnson? They too loathed each other and cast extremely different shadows in American public life. But Kennedy put Johnson on his ticket in order to achieve exactly what Obama needs to achieve now: bringing more conservative, practically-minded voters into his camp. There are other figures who could do this for Obama — most obviously, the anti-war Reagan Democrat senator Jim Webb from Virginia. Webb also neutralizes McCain's veteran appeal to heartland voters. And Webb has a tough campaigning streak as well.But the hard reality is that the Democratic party is deeply divided and Webb cannot bring the losing faction with him.

The Clinton dynasty has lost to the new pretender, but it hasn't been defeated in one fell swoop. Dynasties rarely are. The old guard also has enough clout and enough support to threaten Obama with considerable collateral damage — if it wants to — and that's the message it is now clearly sending.

The old political adage that you should keep your friends close but your enemies closer therefore seems appropriate. Clinton will not be running for president in 2012 if she is vice-president in 2009. The same could not be said if she were consigned back to the Senate to lick her wounds and plot her future. If Obama wanted to flatter her even more, and keep her occupied, he could offer her the healthcare portfolio — allowing her a second chance to do what she so fatally failed to do 15 years ago. And if she turned him down, he could nonetheless say that at least he tried.

The biggest problem, of course, is Bill. He is an inveterate meddler, and thinks of Obama as his nemesis. Having a former president married to your vice-president could give Obama a huge headache as president. But what we've seen in this campaign is how resilient the Clintons are and how dangerous they will be to any Democratic president who isn't beholden to them. Better, perhaps, to co-opt them and bring them into the tent than to have them as dangerous dynastic rivals outside it.

There's also a way for Obama to explain this choice in a way that does not violate — and in fact strengthens — his core message. His model in this should be Abraham Lincoln. What Lincoln did, as Doris Kearns Goodwin explained in her brilliant book, "Team Of Rivals," was to bring his most bitter opponents into his cabinet in order to maintain national and party unity at a time of crisis. Obama — who is a green legislator from Illinois, just as Lincoln was — could signal to his own supporters in picking Clinton that he isn't capitulating to old politics, he is demonstrating his capacity to reach out and engage and co-opt his rivals and opponents. Done deftly, picking Clinton could even resonate with Obama's supporters as a statesmanlike gesture, a sign of the kind of reconciliation he wants to achieve at home and abroad and energize his own party for the fall. It is consonant with his core message: that he can unify the country in a way few other politicians can. It would even help heal the gulf that has opened up between the Clintons and black voters in this campaign. It's win-win all round.

I hesitate to propose this, but I do think it is now worth actively considering for the first time in this campaign. The test of a president is his ability to recognise his own weaknesses and adjust to them. If he can do that while strengthening his core message, and make his own election close to unstoppable, what would hold him back?

[1066AD]

Never happen. Hillary is on the rise. She won't be #2 to anyone.

[no dems]

I’m not so sure that Hillary would take the #2 spot. I think she would rather pray for Obama to lose on November 4th and on November 5th, she’d start running for the Dem nomination in 2012.

Secondly, as the article states, she and Bill would take all the joy out of his Presidency by being two control freaks who think they should be in the Oval Office instead of the Black kid. His life would be miserable.

[Mrs_Stokke]

I think we need to start a pool. I'll bet $10.00 on "impeach."

An impeached black president is better than a dead black president -- Obama would be a martyr, much like the Sainted John Kennedy. Hillary will not allow Obama to be loved more than she. She'll disgrace him, not martyr him.

[billmor]

“Rove once called the idea of a McCain-Huckabee ticket “double trouble”, because you’d get the negatives of both men [man/woman] working against the vote....”

You got that right !...together on the same ticket, that would be a toxic combination...like making a kool aid then watching it smoke ?!

[ApplegateRanch]

Obama-Clinton ensures a Clinton presidency over Obama’s dead body.

[Atchafalaya]

I think he busted one with this swill.

[cynwoody]

An impeached black president is better than a dead black president -- Obama would be a martyr, much like the Sainted John Kennedy. Hillary will not allow Obama to be loved more than she. She'll disgrace him, not martyr him.

They'd never do it unless he were caught in bed with a dead girl or a dead boy. The black vote is just too important to Democrat electoral prospects.

But even if they did impeach him, hey, impeachment is no big deal. Why, consider these two crooks:

The grinning dude on the left is Alcee Hastings, who now sits in the House of Representatives (representing Florida's 23rd District), after that same body impeached him 413-3 for bribery and perjury as a federal judge. And the guy on the right is Marion Barry, the second and fourth mayor of DC, having done a stint in the can in between mayoralties.

[tet68]

I defer to nobody in my contempt and suspicion of the Clintons.

I think the lady doth protest too much.

[prophetic]

I love to see these snakes eating each other.

Let God arise and his enemies be scattered!!

[JavaJumpy]

Strickland strongly supports Hillary. In the primary, Obama only carried five of the 88 counties.

[goldstategop]

A team of the two biggest losers in American history who bring major negatives with them to the general election. Yeah - by all means, let's have some more of those two. We haven't had enough of Hillary and Obama this year.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Amendment10]

Perhaps Rush should try to plan to diffuse a possible Obama / Clinton ticket in Operation Chaos, possibly renaming it Operation Double Chaos.

[Luke21]

Hillary will win. BHO will accept the number two spot. McCain will be picked and plowed under like a corn field.

[Soliton]

I have made the exact same argument on here for weeks. This is the probable result of Operation Chaos. By keeping Hillary close, she gets the VP slot and there is no longer a rift in the party. They would wipe the floor with McCain.

This poor schmo of an author is a Democrat. He doesn’t understand the physical jeopardy that Obama would be in with Hillary as VP. Hillary’s people would be ready day-one, to dig up impeachable offenses against BO too.

[Gorzaloon]

Remember Kennedy-Johnson? They too loathed each other and cast extremely different shadows in American public life.

Oh, we sure do.

Kennedy was killed and Johnson became a bad president.

[Caipirabob]

The two pals I have at work who are an authorities on "being black" both hate Hillary Clinton. One is an Obama supporter and the other is quiet on who he supports (he's literally a genius and tries to avoid politics.) They've both made it clear they wouldn't support her, although I think the former would vote for Obama with her as Veep. The other, who is both peer and professor to me, just seems disgusted by the whole thing.

[romanesq]

Rooting, praying interest for the Rats. Sullivan wants to unite the venom of two snakes to save the snake.

Isn’t going to happen. Obama would have to be out of his mind and Shrillary has no intention of sitting around in a VP office.

Zero.

[skipper18]

You should read his blog, he despises the Clintons.

It’s like a 1-man FreeRepublic he’s got going on over there.

[iopscusa]

Andrew Sullivan’s a huge victim of the brain rot of amoral hedonism...whatever he says bears very little on reality...the guy is a freak and a clown, I don’t understand why anyone would pay him any attention!?!

[ripley]

“a hate-filled dream ticket.”

an ambiguous title. is it the hate they have for each other or the abhorrence they both have for the system they’re seeking to undermine.

they both have a retinue of socialist thugs waiting in the wings to worm away at the constitution and make it seem useless and out-of-date.

an appropriate title no matter how it’s taken.

imho