Will He Give That Scorpion A Ride?

Hillary Clinton has received her just desserts. It lacked the condign glory that would attend her getting Mondaled by about 450 Electoral Votes on a happy, beer-soaked Tuesday Night in November. However, the witch appears dead and I’ll gladly take it. She ran a deceitful campaign, based on insipid, mawkish stupidity, and died a well-earned death.

She will try something alien to her very core and will attempt a gracious concession to Senator Barak Obama. However, Hillary will attach strings. One of those may very well be her desire to be made Vice President.

Dick Morris points out the weaknesses of this arrangement from Barack Obama’s perspective. He could have been easier on my stomach by not describing the Clinton-Obama ticket as a ménage-a-trois. Morris launches his argument against the Clinton Veepage below.

She seems to be demanding a kind of coalition government between herself and Obama, a definition of the vice presidency not likely to appeal to the president. It reminds me of 1980 when there were discussions of a ticket with Reagan as the presidential nominee and former President Gerald Ford as the vice president in a coalition government where the VP would have extraordinary powers.

He then disparages Hillary for her conduct unbecoming a defeated candidate.

Instead of conceding defeat and campaigning for Obama, auditioning for the spot of loyal teammate, Hillary insists on keeping her options open and vies for the spotlight with Obama, exactly what you do not want a vice president to do.

He offers his reasons for doubting Clinton’s political viability as an asset to Obama in the General Election.

Adding Hillary to the ticket would not bring Obama a single vote (except possibly for Bill's). Her supporters are divided into two distinct categories. The original Clintonistas were strong Democrats, party faithful, pro-choice, middle-aged and up, largely female and all white. But Hillary's recent backers have been downscale whites of both genders who were turned off by Obama's pastor, wife and other associates and were afraid he might be a Muslim in disguise. Unhappy about voting for a woman, they never really liked Hillary but turned to her when the alternative was Obama.

He puts the cherry on the top of his analysis by proving that Hell hath no fury like a boot-licking toady scorned. He gets positively McClellanesque in his description of how Former President Bill Clinton would drag on Senator Obama’s election day hopes.

Bill's relationships with billionaires, his pursuit of financial gain, his alliance with the emir of Dubai, and his acceptance of speaking fees and income from some of the least savory of types is not what you need to carry around with you in a presidential race. To put Hillary on the ticket is to confront nagging questions about donors to the Clinton Library and Bill's refusal to release them. It would be to inherit a load of baggage that Obama does not need as he tries to position himself as the candidate of change, antithetical to the corrupt and corrupting ways of Washington.

Inveighing contra Morris are those Democrats starry-eyed over the prospect of a dream ticket. Liberal partisan DeWayne Wickham openly states this as a necessary, rather than merely a sufficient, condition for a Democratic win this Fall. Wickham opines in USA Today below.

If Democrats are going to win the White House in November, they need a shotgun wedding in June. This is not something that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton wants to hear, nor is it anything party leaders have been willing to say — at least not publicly. But without both Clinton and Obama on the same ticket, Democrats stand a good chance of suffering a humiliating defeat in the general election. (USA TODAY – 29 April 2008)

There may be some kernel of truth to Wickham’s assessment. This has happened to the Democratic Party before. The George Wallace American Independent Party candidacy in 1968 comes to mind. This was one of the first Presidential Elections since Reconstruction where the Democrats failed to beat the Republicans in the Southeastern United States.

Wallace took the votes of traditionally staunch white Democrats by campaigning against Civil Rights legislation and government activism. Hillary Clinton did nothing of the sort. Her salient against the left wing of her own party revolved more around cultural concerns. She made Barak Obama’s tone-deafness to any coalition outside the African American and upper-class liberal base of the modern Democratic Party into a major issue.

However, the same fault lines that split the Democrats in 1968 and propelled Richard Nixon to The White House reappeared in this year’s Democratic Primary. Primary voters split along lines of age, class and race in a pattern suggesting that poorer White and Hispanic Democrats are following the lead of Super Delegate Steve Ybarra and asking the party “what’s in this for me?”

Barak Obama may very well have to come up with a compelling response to this question if he wants to prevent a small, but potentially lethal defection of Democratic Party constituents to John McCain this November. One possible way of at least assuaging these concerns, in the regrettable absence of an agenda beyond refried 70’s liberalism, is by teaming up with Mother Hillary. He could try and soothe some of that lingering bitterness and at least leave these voters with the impression that they counted as human beings on the Planet Barak.

That route comes freighted with baggage that Dick Morris was too busy venting against Bill to completely detail. I remember vividly the chic liberal agonists decrying the secret despotism being run by wicked, old Premier Cheney, while the callow, young George W. Bush fiddled. He was the wizened,Dr. Evil; who controlled the weather and the tides from the White House basement, along with his nefarious energy task force.

If the left has their fun with Oilman Dick, imagine what the Conservatives would do with “Give ‘em Health” Hillary. She would be portrayed as lurking in the VPOTUS office, amidst stacks of her enemies’ FBI files. Hillary would be only to happy to lend an increasingly helpful hand in steering Barak Obama’s administration through the difficult shoals of a ancient presidency. After all, she worked wonders for Dear Old Bill until she was nearly exiled to Point Barrow after the 1994 Midterm Election.

This leaves Barak with an interesting dilemma. He can follow the old wisdom of Machiavelli and keep one his enemies closer by inviting Hillary on his ticket. He would have her close at hand and in a position in which he could theoretically control her. The Kevlar back rest that he would have installed in the executive chair maybe wouldn’t be all that uncomfortable.

However, he may also wonder if he wants someone that corrupt and ambitious in his midst. Anyone who could no more disown Reverend Wright than his own Grandmother two months ago understands well the way corrupt and ambitious people can turn on a dime. Just as the spiritual mentor of today is the persona-non-grata of tomorrow, the running mate of 2008, is the target of internecine sabotage two years hence.

Barak Obama may be too smart and agile a thinker to want to give the scorpion named Hillary Rodham a ride. If I were David Axelrod or even the tingled-legged Christopher Matthews, I’d be advising that he kill her with a shovel while he still has the chance.