Apparently, there’s at least one prominent Democrat lobbying to get Hillary Clinton the No. 2 spot on the ticker, her husband:
While Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers insist that she is determined to win the Democratic nomination, friends of the couple say that former President Bill Clinton, for one, has begun privately contemplating a different outcome for her: As Senator Barack Obama’s running mate.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign said Thursday that Mr. Clinton had not had private conversations in which he was pushing her for the vice presidency or arguing that she deserved it, and that he believed the choice of a running mate was a personal one for the nominee.
Friends of the former president say his musings have been more casual: He believes that an Obama-Clinton ticket could help unify the party, and he thinks she has earned a meeting with Mr. Obama to discuss the possibility.
According to these friends, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to be identified revealing private talks, Mr. Clinton believes that his wife’s victories in major primary battles, like Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the 16 million votes cast for her candidacy make her the proper choice for Mr. Obama.
“If she’s not going to be the nominee, then he wants her in the second spot,” said one friend of the Clintons. “In the long run, it’s the best way for her to run again in 2016.”
In the meantime, though, there’s at least one report that Obama has already said no to the idea of the so-called dream nightmare ticket:
The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said “no.” Obama is
going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that Hillary Bill is going to give up anytime soon:
[W]hen the Clinton surrogates continue to advocate that Obama choose Senator Clinton as veep, everybody will know: It’s Bill, and not Hill, stoking the fire. When New York political insider Mark Green’s Air America sent an email blast this morning to its entire mailing list featuring the milquetoast, boring and Arbitron-ratings neglected Thom Hartmann’s plea - “Obama: Ask Hillary First” (and this Air America subscriber summarily unsubscribed from that list this morning upon receiving that piece of corporate-paid advertising), everybody knows: the ventriloquist behind these Muppets is Bill Clinton.
And it’s not even about the vice presidency. For Bill, it is about wrestling back “the Clinton brand” from his spouse. How’s that for petty? Arianna Huffington wrote a compelling essay last week listing the triumphs of Senator Clinton’s campaign, paving the way for other women in politics, and noting that, “she has redefined and taken over the Clinton brand… she is the Clinton who will now be most relevant to the country’s future.”
Not so fast. “The Clinton problem” today is not: what will the Democratic Party or Barack Obama do about Senator Clinton? It is: what will Senator Clinton do about that loose cannon of a former president?
You shall know the politically inept among us by those that continue to advocate for The Disaster Ticket now that Bill has pushed himself so unnecessarily into the photo, confirming that he is the most compelling reason why an Obama-Clinton ticket will never happen, and you shall know them also even by those who oppose it but who worry, fret and gnash teeth aloud that somehow it could be forced to happen after this latest development.
The only question that remains is whether Hillary Bill really will go to Denver and force a convention fight so that she his wife can spend the next four to eight years breaking ties in the Senate and going to funerals.
H/T: Brendan Loy
