What does Hillary want?
Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 11:14PM Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine asks that very question. And her conclusion: who knows ...
According to Tumulty's sources, former President Clinton is pushing hard for Hillary to be a part of the ticket. She writes: "In Bill Clinton's view she has earned nothing short of an offer to be Obama's running mate, according to some who are close to the former President. Bill 'is pushing real hard for this to happen,' says a friend."
For her part, Hillary has been pretty coy about what's next, though one thing is clear: with each primary victory her negotiating hand only strengthens. Hillary's blowout victories in West Virginia and Kentucky shine a spotlight on Obama's biggest weakness -- his inability to connect with working-class voters -- and the Clintons know it. One train of thought suggests that she's staying in the race, in part, to drive home that very point: Hillary provides a critical piece of the electoral map that Obama can't win without.
As much as Obama might want to dismiss Hillary as a running mate, in the end he may have little choice in the matter: the same superdelegates and party leaders that have made his nomination possible may insist on a shotgun wedding for the simple reason that a "dream ticket" scenario would be very difficult for McCain to defeat.
Some back-of-the-napkin math shows that with Hillary on the ticket, a bunch of red states come into play, including Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Arkansas, and a few blue states become more secure, most notably Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. This is hard math -- very hard math -- for John McCain to overcome. In an odd way, the longer Hillary stays in, and the more strength she shows, the more likely it is that she'll be on the ticket. In the end, victory is all that matters, and Hillary will certainly strengthen the ticket.
Reader Comments (2)
I just got back to the country, and haven't had much time to polish up on what's happened as of late, but in regards to speaking of Obama's running mate--- what's this I hear about John Edwards?
Edwards endorsed Obama, and evidentially they make an "attractive" couple (politically speaking) ... I don't see it, however. For starters, Edwards probably doesn't help win North Carolina at all. Secondly, he's proven to be an inneffective general election campaigner (ask John Kerry for his opinion on this). And at the end of the day, I'm not sure that Edwards really attracts working-class voters the way he thinks he does; if he did, he probably would have faired better in some of the early contests.