Offer Hillary Clinton the Vice Presidency? I Think Not

Shortly after Barack Obama’s meteoric rise earlier this year, many Democrats began to ponder a possible dream ticket comprised of Obama and Hilary Clinton, with either one at the top as the Presidential nominee and the other as the Vice Presidential nominee.  The historic nature of this particular campaign was no doubt part of this speculative hope, with a woman and an African-American as the top two candidates for the presidential nomination of a major American political party.

The problems with such speculation, however, were at least two-fold from the outset.  First, two strong-willed and forceful candidates, like Obama and Clinton, are not likely to play second banana to each other.  Second, Clinton specifically had very high negatives when it came to Americans’ opinions of her.  A disapproval rating of nearly 50% does not make for the strongest candidate in a general election, and neither does it make for a strong Vice Presidential nominee. 

And then, when it became increasingly obvious that Obama had the momentum and became the leader in the nomination process, the Clinton campaign took a negative and destructive turn.  Beginning in South Carolina, Clinton and her supporters overtly and covertly resurrected the specter of America’s original sin: racism.  This perhaps reached it’s zenith after wins in West Virginia and Kentucky when Clinton spoke of her high levels of support from White, working class Americans.

Her campaign also capitalized on several gaffes by Obama, most notably his ill-conceived and phrased comment about small town Americans.  Subsequently painted by Clinton and the Republican candidate as an elitist (one of the most damning of labels in our nation’s politics), and suffering from the media frenzy over videotape of his former pastor at Trinity UCC in Chicago, Obama’s negatives began to rise to Clintonian levels. 

What I find most disconcerting about this is how Clinton, a woman of privilege (at least for the last 25 + years) with an income at least ten times her opponent’s, would call Obama an elitist.  And perhaps the nadir of her campaign came during the Pennsylvania primary when Clinton transformed herself from the former First Lady and Junior Senator from New York into a beer-swilling, gun-shooting, and Iran-nuking commoner.  It was an amazing sight to behold, as well as being more than a little embarrassing.

Given all this, why should Obama pick Clinton as his VP nominee?  I can think of only one reason: to assuage her supporters, some of which have said they would rather vote for John McCain than Barack Obama.  Consider that for a moment: supposed Democrats who would vote for John McCain, a man who has steadily marched further into the right-wing of the Republican party in order to win it’s nomination, rather than vote for a man whose positions and policies are essentially the same as their candidate of choice.  Have any of these people even remotely considered the consequences of such an action and of how vastly different the presidencies of Obama and McCain would be?  Have they thought about how the Supreme Court would fare under McCain versus Obama, or how the policies of a failed presidency have been embraced by the presumptive Republican nominee?  I have to conclude that they either have not or that they are concerned only with a politics of vindictiveness and revenge.  Should Obama attempt to mollify such folks?  I think not, as they are not likely to be mollified regardless of what he does.

Finally, there is one other argument against Clinton being offered the VP position: through her attitude and actions in the waning weeks and days of the campaign, Clinton has added to the deepening divisions in the Democratic party by continuing to act as though she had a “snowball’s chance in hell” of winning the nomination.  Her claim to be the leader of the popular vote total (a specious claim at best), only served to needlessly remind her supporters of the debacle that was the 2000 presidential election, and illegitimately fire up emotions against Barack Obama who was subsequently seen as being the one in this year’s election who would not “count all the votes.”

This kind of hubris and “win at all costs” mindset was in ample evidence in her speech this evening in her home state of New York.  After it was clear that Obama had won the delegates necessary to claim the nomination, and although this was a truly historic moment in American history with the first African-American as the presumptive nominee of a major political party, Clinton choose not to concede defeat and instead continued with her divisive politics.  Clinton all but told Obama that she was the leader of 18 million Democrats, and that if he wanted their support, he would have to do what she wanted him to do.  I am in charge here, not you, she seemed to be saying at times, and as one commenter on CNN stated, Clinton did everything in her speech tonight except offer Obama the Vice Presidency.

Is this the person Obama wants or needs as his Vice Presidential nominee.  I think not.