On May 20th we may have a very good idea if Hillary Rodham Clinton is to be considered for our Vice Presidential Candidate.


I) Preface: Considering Clinton for Vice President should be no harder for Obama supporters than for Clinton supporters to consider Obama for President.

If you want Clinton supporters to accept Obama as our party’s leader for the next 8 years is it not reasonable to consider without rancor Senator Clinton as our Vice President for the next few minutes?

There is always time to go ape shit later

If you want Clinton supporters to reconcile then a civil response to this idea will be helpful, very helpful.

Of course you are completely free to explain in detail why the writer is a fucking idiot – that will cause the Clinton supporter no remorse.




II) May 20th is the decisive day.

Obama will win the pledged delegate majority, he will have the super delegate majority, he will have the Pelosi deluge. He will have money and delegates and he will be in Oregon turning his guns on the Third Bush Turn. There will be no matrix the Clinton campaign can call upon to change the reality of that night.

The next day the Clinton campaign faces the disclosure of April fund raising numbers that will show financial problems and, most likely, the $ 10 million day as a rather ambitious exaggeration. From that point on the Clintons know that they will be answering only questions about them and they will be on the defensive.



III) Hillary’s speech in Kentucky

My guess is that before Obama speaks in Oregon Clinton will give a speech in Kentucky. If that speech is about her campaign and her supporters then she will have gone out on top. If, however, we hear a speech that includes passages extolling the candidacy of Senator Obama, outlining how he has created a new possibility for the Democratic Party then there is a pretty good chance that consideration has been given to her as VP.



IV) The Case for Hillary as Vice President.

Let us put away all of the passion of the last year.

Let us consider this question simply with one factor in mind – will it help us in the General Election? Nothing else matters. The war, the destruction of the middle class, the oppression of the poor, the use of the military instead of diplomacy, the systemic collapse of environmental systems require that we put our personal feelings aside and look at the bigger picture (and it is exactly what we have been yelling at the Clinton supporters to do for weeks).

1) Why Hillary would want it. Hillary now wants, I believe, to establish a place in history as a unique contributor to the Woman’s movement. This is not a bad thing. We don’t criticize Jackie Robinson for this ambition and we shouldn’t criticize her for it either. Returning to the Senate as one among many does not fulfill that. Becoming the first woman Vice President does. There is a different type of attitude between Executive and Legislative types. Hillary prefers an executive rather than a legislative role which depends on so much collaboration.

2) The person most likely to become the 45th President is the next Vice President. She may be 61 now but she doesn’t look or act like it and in 8 years she still will be completely capable of running hard for President. Are there any Obama supporters who can argue that she doesn’t have the energy. The idea that it would be impossible for her to run in 8 years is absurd.

3) Obviously it would solve the healing problem for the party.

4) It would show that Obama is not petty. That he never took the assaults on him personally. That he is a person capable of thinking beyond himself.

5) The fact is that while I believe that Obama is going on to a massive historic win Hillary does carry certain demographics in certain states at a significant rate. For example:
















I frankly don’t consider these polls that significant when it comes to Obama because the campaign hasn’t started yet and I know that Obama is going to go up. What is significant is that Hillary, despite a fairly strange and ineffective campaign has retained higher numbers than McCain.

6) Campaign tested. It’s a tough grind doing what these two have done. And no Republican has done it. She knows the grind and she can take it.

She can debate. She has had 21 of them – or more – some of the debates she was debating 3-4 people at the same time.

The Republicans haven’t had anything like it.

7) She brings even more contributors.

8) She creates a very difficult problem for McCain. If the Republicans nominate two white males the juxtaposition is going to be telling. African Americans, Hispanics, Women all are going to be highly motivated to say, you guys have had your turn.

Who is McCain going to appoint to counter that? If he picks a minority or a Republican woman then it is going to smack of symbolic and not substantive choice. Hillary Clinton isn’t the woman candidate, she is the candidate who happens to be a woman.

9) She brings Bill as a campaigner. Used in the right situations, small towns and in the south he can be very effective, especially when he isn’t emotionally tied to it.

10) She can help Obama be even better prepared for Day One. The fact is that we have seen Obama improve with this campaign. He has a terrific learning curve. The huge minutiae associated with running the government requires experience, which he will hire. Senator Clinton and her husband will have a significant contribution to offer.



Summary:

If Hillary Clinton’s speech on May 20th is a concession speech and it extols the many attributes of the next president of the United States, it would indicate that consideration is being given to Senator Clinton as Vice President. Today Senator Clinton indicated that the two campaigns are in daily conversation.

For many of us this is going to take some time for us to consider in a rational unemotional way. Many of us, myself included have alluded to the feeling that if she is on the ticket we might not support it. Well we all know that is just not true. We got our candidate for President. We won. And now we have to start communicating like we are victors and not as if we are still in the trenches.

There are, I am sure, many ways to criticize the points above. I will probably agree with many of them.

However how we treat the question of how we consider Hillary as a Vice Presidential candidate will have an impact on how the Clinton supporters react to Senator Obama as the Presidential candidate, and how they act in DU.

Therefore it would be very considerate to the Clinton supporters in DU to agree or disagree in a polite dispassionate way. If you want Clinton supporters to help heal the party and rebuild a united front to the McCain apostasy known as BUSH III then some restraint would be a strategic advantage

Of course calling the writer of the OP a dickhead or anything else would be completely understood, entirely accurate and would in fact delight many Clinton supporters as well.