The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has found yet another strategy to employ against Senator Barack Obama. A pernicious and truly sinister attack that might just be their most effective ploy yet: selling the Democratic voters on a Clinton-Obama ticket. Both Hillary and Bill Clinton have been all over the media these past days openly speculating about Barack Obama as a running mate, which, on the surface, seems like a fig leaf to Obama if he’d just end his annoying and time-consuming wins (Obama won in Wyoming today and, as it turns out, won Texas—see following). But this is no fig leaf so much as it is a Trojan horse.
Floating Obama-as-veep accomplishes a number of things, all good for the Clintons: (1) it puts Obama on defense, forcing the senator to all but publicly declare he won’t take the veep slot if offered, which thereby frees Hillary from having to officially offer it, something she would surely loathe to do but would be forced to do should she win so closely a contested race. By floating it out there, she gets Obama on record as not wanting it, which helps her with the black vote when she doesn’t offer it to him. (2) It puts Obama in the Little Brother category. “And here’s my little brother, Barack.” Should Obama even obliquely engage her in this business, he’s finished as a serious candidate, as it positions him, viscerally, as Number Two in the minds of the voters. Obama cannot engage her about this, which forces him to either ignore her altogether or reject this nonsense on the merits, which brings us back to (1).
Finally, (3) this strategy helps Clinton with Obama sympathizers, mainly black women whose loyalty is divided between race and gender. It seems to offer us the chance to have our cake and eat it to. But I am persuaded Senator Clinton will only offer Senator Obama the veep spot if absolutely pressed to the wall. I believe she is furious at this man for ruining her coronation, for making her have to deal her way in to the Oval Office. The very last thing she’s considering is offering Obama an important cabinet post or the vice presidency. I believe she despises the man, and this truly evil strategy seems to bear those suspicions out.
This business is a poison pill designed to kill Obama’s candidacy. And it just might work. Clinton plays to the obvious hope of many Democrats—that we end up with both of them. But it’s a lie. A lie worthy of the best of the West Wing episodes (it is, in fact, ripped off of a West Wing episode in which President Elect Jimmy Smits floats a veep slot to losing presidential candidate Alan Alda. That was a set-up, too). It’s a setup to take Obama down and to insulate Clinton when she ultimately chooses some Southern military type as her running mate.
I wish I could say the American people, or at least the Democratic voters are smart enough to see through this, but I suspect they aren’t. Playing to America’s ignorance and fear is a time-tested Republican strategy. This move on the part of the Clinton camp have revealed Hillary’s other face. I find my intelligence insulted by this business, and I’m really not liking either the former president or the former first lady very much right now.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it (and you probably have, the news media seems to be all but ignoring it), the numbers are in: Senator Barack Obama won Texas. Senator Hillary Clinton apparently won the popular vote, but Obama beat her in delegates. I could go on to explain this, but MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann did a much better job than I could.
