Ahhh….just visualize it. The “dream ticket” (for some Democrats and Clinton supporters) as articulated by former President Bill Clinton: Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Vice Presidential candidate Barack Obama. But Obama made it clear to today that its the in-your-dreams ticket.
From The Politico:
“Now first of all with all due respect, with all due respect,” he said here during a town hall meeting. “I won twice as many states as Sen. Clinton. I won more of the popular vote than Sen. Clinton. I have more delegates than Sen. Clinton. So I don’t’ know how someone in second place can offer the vice presidency to someone in first place. If I was in second place I could understand but I am in first place right now.
He referenced comments from Bill Clinton in 1992 that his “most important criteria” for vice president was that person must be ready to be commander in chief.
“They have been spending the last two or three weeks” arguing that he is not ready to be commander in chief, Obama said.
“I don’t understand. If I am not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president?” Obama asked the crowd, which gave him a standing ovation during his defense. “I don’t understand.”“You can’t say he is not ready on day one, then you want him to be your vice president,” Obama continued. “I just want everybody to absolutely clear: I am not running for vice president. I am running to be president of the United States of America.”
Some analysts in reports suggest that this has been floated (and the former President isn’t the only person in the Clinton camp who has given a subtle message that it would be a perfect ticket) to a) paint Hillary Clinton as the front-runner and restart the discarded “inevitability” image, and b) to peel off Obama voters and perhaps appeal to Superdelegates.
The only certainty is this: the bitterness between Obama’s supporters and Clinton’s is now so great that a ticket with the two might be the only way to unite the party.
But even that wouldn’t work unless No. 2 convinced his/her followers that it was a great concept. So it remains the “In Your Dreams” ticket, even if the Democrats face a divisive nightmare in Denver.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.