Selecting Hillary as his running mate would prove a catastrophe for Obama.
With Hillary and Bill sharing the same space, there wouldn't be oxygen enough left in the White House to breathe.
They both would be looking over his shoulders and second-guessing him. He'd feel them staring at his back.
Most importantly, Obama's greatest strengths are freshness and thoughtfulness, he has a kind of grace, very rare qualities in an American national politician.
Hillary is tired stuff, a bitter, old-school pol. Her husband, despite all the superficial charm, is genuinely sleazy. Their presence would cast a shadow across Obama's administration before he even got started.
Obama has an intelligent, educated, independent-minded wife too. She will shine, and the last thing she needs is checking over her shoulder for Hillary.
Obama needs to pick a white, well-educated woman for his running mate, someone genuinely suitable to be president. There are today lots of them in America.
A few weeks after he's done that, Hillary will be forgotten. I doubt she'll ever have a national presence again. She has demonstrated a truly unpleasant character, but then we should have known that because she's lived with her ethically bankrupt husband for thirty years.
I think the best Hillary could do is work towards taking on the Edward Kennedy role in the Senate. He will be missed. But even this is not going to be easy. She has offended many.
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Martha K,
I don't think you understand the nature of the office of Vice President.
There is no work, none.
The only defined role in the American Constitution is to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
It is the most useless job on the planet, as several past vice presidents, and notably John Adams, have said.
It gives an ambitious person a lot of time to kill and the potential any day to create problems with publicity and leaks.
In recent times, the vice president has been given a ceremonial role abroad to "fill in" for the president when the matter is less than important.
The repulsive Dick Cheney has been unlike any other vice president in history. He is the de facto, "closet" president, Bush being a weak character and an obtuse one too. This is unlikely ever to be repeated.
Any strong person in the vice president's role rankles. Johnson was unbelievably angry with the Kennedy brothers. They just ignored him, and he had an ego the size of Hillary's.
More than one observer after the assassination of Kennedy believed Johnson was involved for this reason. There was a play written not long after called "MacByrd," MacBeth reworked. And there are several serious analyses of his possible involvement.
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Martha K,
You truly sound ridiculous now.
I don't know where you've been getting your information about who has called whom what, but when the information is as poor as you reveal here, it really is better to avoid advertising the fact by posting.
Plenty of people have called Obama names, insinuated nasty things about him, and questioned his motives. He has suffered through idiocy like flag pins, Reverend Wright, and reaction to his lovely wife's honest remarks. Clinton joined in on much of this crap.
Clinton is well known, moreover, behind the scenes, to have attempted to influence super-delegates with a line about black Obama having no appeal to the White Flight crowd (America's term for whites who fled blacks in the cities and first-tier suburbs after the Civil Rights Act). It was an ugly use of race, likely the ugliest of her many questionable statements.
Her ego may be measured by idiotic claims like being under fire in Bosnia, a complete fabrication covered by nonsense about being tired (when you are tired, hidden truth is more likely than fabrication).
She also plainly blew her campaign. She was originally the leader. She underestimated her competition and used some very poorly considered tactics. This is anything but proof of her judgment.
But the most glaring measure of her ego is her complete lack of grace in losing. She should have gracefully conceded and encouraged support for the party's candidate - that is the way it is done.
But not by Hillary. We have to be kept in suspense with her breathing hard in the background. It's just awful.
Can you imagine this pair behind you constantly?
