Clinton wants VP slot, but she can't have it - it will only help McCain.

AZBlue

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Sat May-10-08 11:49 PM
Original message

Clinton wants VP slot, but she can't have it - it will only help McCain.

(A long but VITAL read!)

This has to be stopped. Her presence on the Dem ticket in November will only help McCain and hurt Dems (Obama and anyone running for a Congressional seat).

Friends and close associates of both Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are now convinced that, assuming she loses the race for the presidential nomination, she is probably going to fight to be the vice presidential nominee on an Obama-for-president ticket.

(snip)

A person close to her, with whom her campaign staff has counseled at various points, said this week, "I think the following will happen: Obama will be in a position where the party declares him the nominee by the first week in June. She'll still be fighting with everybody -- the Rules Committee, the party leaders -- and arguing, 'I'm winning these key states; I've got almost half the delegates. I have a whole constituency he hasn't reached. I've got real differences on approach to how we win this election, and I'm going to press the hell out of this guy. ... Relief for the middle class, universal health care, etc.; I'm Ms. Blue Collar, and I'm going to press my fight, because he can't win without my being on the ticket.' "

She doesn't know when to stop. She will destroy everything and everyone in her way just to get what she wants.

In theory, the landing of Campaign Clinton by the end of the primaries -- in early June at the latest, without the prospect of a convention struggle -- would be good news from Obama's point of view and even from the perspective of close Clinton friends and associates who revere their candidate and worry about the legacy of Hillary and Bill Clinton.

However, from the perspective of both campaign camps, there is serious concern about the kind of landing she's aiming for and the precarious task of bringing her plane down, especially if she decides to seek the vice presidential nomination. There could be a number of different landings:

� Smooth and skillful, doing the Obama candidacy no further damage and perhaps restoring to relative health the legacy of and regard for Bill and Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party.

� Explosive, setting down after the enemy has been carpet-bombed (an "October surprise in May"), something the Obama campaign believes may be less and less likely to come from his Democratic opponent because of the dangers to the party and the Clintons' reputation. Yet the Clinton campaign's search for damaging information and its hope that such information exists continues, according to knowledgeable sources. Strategist Harold Ickes, her premier tactical counselor, warned on the eve of the North Carolina and Indiana that Obama could be vulnerable to an "October surprise" by the McCain campaign.

� Missing the runway and destroying the Democratic village, as even her advocates outside her immediate campaign apparat fear could happen if the Clinton campaign continues to pursue a harshly negative course.

� Just bumpy and scary enough to shake the Obama campaign one last time and get her into the hangar as the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket. Increasingly, this is what people in Obama's corner and those who know her well are becoming convinced she will try to do. Part of this assumption is based on her determination to roll up the biggest numbers possible in West Virginia and Kentucky, and Bill Clinton's argument that she may still win a majority of popular votes in non-caucus states.

So now the entire Democratic Party and the nation should pay for her botched campaign??

Almost no one I have spoken to who knows her well doubts that, as she reconciles to the likelihood that her presidential campaign is falling short, she will probably seek the vice presidential spot. One reason: Contrary to common belief, she doesn't look forward to going back to the Senate, they say. Many Democratic senators believe that she would not have an easy time winning an election for majority leader; the tenor and tactics of her presidential campaign have alienated some of her Democratic colleagues in the Senate.

Far more than as one of 100 senators, she could accomplish much of her lifelong social and political agenda as vice president and, if Obama is not elected, could make a better argument that she should be the party's next nominee for president.

One other factor now plays a bigger role in the vice presidential question than on the night of her defeat in North Carolina and her narrow win in the Indiana primary: her unequivocable assertion the following day that she has more support among white working-class voters than Obama has.

In an interview with USA Today, she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

It is difficult to overstate the negative effect this remark has had on superdelegates, party leaders and her Democratic colleagues in both houses of Congress. "That's not a way to land the plane," one of her key supporters said. "If you were a superdelegate, you'd say, 'We have to shut this down right away.' "

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/10/bernstein.clinton/index.html

But Clinton on the ticket will be a huge boost to McCain and could possibly lead to a McCain victory.

Now that it is apparent to all, except perhaps Hillary Clinton and some of her die-hard supporters, that Barack Obama will be the Democratic presidential nominee, the drumbeat for a "dream" ticket is starting. But before this goes too far, we need to ask, whose "dream" are we talking about? Our Republican opponents' dream or ours?

John McCain is in deep trouble, and not just because of the legacy of George Bush. He is in trouble with much of the Republican base, particularly the Religious Right, who never have trusted him. It is no accident that turnout in nearly all Republican primaries has been low, that McCain's fundraising has been dismal and that in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, nearly 25 percent of Republican voters voted against him, despite the fact that he clearly will be the Republican nominee.

While McCain was the strongest in a weak field of Republican candidates, his candidacy clearly is not galvanizing conservatives. There is only one candidate who can do that: Hillary Clinton. To the conservative base of the Republican Party, she is the Democratic demon and the candidate the Republicans' want to face. She is Rush Limbaugh's candidate of choice. She is the candidate who the Right would use to raise money and turn out volunteers. She is the only potential Democratic VP who would build Republican enthusiasm and inspire the grassroots Republican campaign.

And of course there's this important little fact to consider:
She also is the candidate who consistently measures the highest "unfavorable" ratings of anyone who ever has run for the presidency. In an ABC News poll, Clinton polls 54 percent unfavorable; perhaps even worse, 58 percent of voters say she is not honest and trustworthy. Both Clintons stand out for the amount of voter antipathy they attract: Thirty-nine percent of voters have a "strongly unfavorable" opinion of Hillary Clinton; only 22 percent have a "strongly favorable" view. Thirty-four percent are strongly negative on Bill Clinton and 51 percent have an "unfavorable" opinion of him. And Hillary's low-road campaign has had an impact: Forty-one percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters describe the tone of the Democratic campaign as "mostly negative," and by nearly a 4 to 1 margin, 52 percent to 14 percent, blame Clinton. Is taking baggage like this into the general election anyone's "dream" but a Republican's?

And let's remember her own disastrous comments about Obama throghout this campaign? How could anyone respect her anywhere on the ticket?
Every one of Clinton's interactions with the media would feature questions like, "Do you still think Barack Obama lacks experience to be commander-in-chief?" "Do you still think Obama is an elitist?" "That he doesn't understand the problems of the white working class?" "Do you still think his past association with Reverend Wright is very troublesome?" Obama would be asked, "During the primary campaign, your VP said your healthcare plan sucked. Was she right? Does it suck?" "Do you want to obliterate Iran, too, like your vice president?" And, when the press wasn't asking these questions, John McCain would ask them. Or, maybe we all could be reminded of Bill's talk of a Clinton versus McCain contest, where we would have a campaign of "two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," unlike Obama. Even worse than this scenario, Barack Obama would be cast in the position of having to defend his own VP's past attacks on himself. By doing so, he would not simply look like a hypocrite, he would, in fact, be a hypocrite -- thus putting into jeopardy his coin of the realm, his honesty and integrity. The general campaign wouldn't be about Obama versus McCain, it would be Act Two of a very bad marriage, with Obama sacrificing his integrity trying to explain away his own VP's past attacks on him. If you think her snarky, negative primary campaign was a thing of the past, think again because the Republicans and the press would offer us deja vu all over again. Lost in this dialogue of the past would be Obama's opportunity to explain how he wants to take America into a more productive future.

And of course I still wonder what the GOP has on Clinton that led to Operation Chaos? Why were they so desperate for her to be the Dem candidate? What would they have revealed that would give McCain the presidency?
Does anyone think that a man with a documented 30-year history of philandering with a long list of bowling alley queens has magically stopped playing the field, or that the Republicans will not exploit this? Does anyone think the Republicans will not exploit Bill's fund-raising associations with some of the questionable people who have given him millions for his library and foundation in favor of his deal-making with oil oligarchs, or exploit his 11th-hour pardons of some pretty disreputable characters, including two convicted bomb-carrying members of the Weather Underground? How much more baggage can Hillary sustain?

http://www.alternet.org/election08/84955/

Encourage your superdelegates and the Democratic Party to NOT give into the latest Clinton temper tantrum and ruin this great thing we have going!