In the immediate aftermath of the Republican National Convention last week and John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, there was much speculation about the role that Hillary Clinton would play in the race now that there was a woman on the other ticket.
Last Thursday, for example, The New York Times reported that the Obama campaign intended to rely on female Democrats in general, and Clinton specifically, to counter the momentum that the Palin pick has given the Republicans:
ST. PAUL — Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and bolstering his plan to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said Thursday.
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign event in Florida, her first for Mr. Obama since the Democratic convention, will serve as a counterpoint to the searing attacks and fresh burst of energy that Ms. Palin injected into the race with her convention speech on Wednesday, Obama aides said.
(…)
Advisers to Mrs. Clinton said that she stood ready to help the Obama-Biden ticket, but they urged the campaign not to overestimate the impact Mrs. Clinton could have, noting that she had other commitments this fall, like campaigning and raising money for Senate candidates. Obama aides said the Clinton trip had been in the works before Ms. Palin was named the running mate.
Still, Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman, said he believed she could make a difference with some voters who feel lost in the current economy and who want to see a federal role enacting universal health insurance.
“Anyone who was inclined to support Hillary Clinton typically did so because of her focus on middle-class, bread-and-butter issues,” Mr. Elleithee said. “Her message for Barack Obama on those issues could certainly help the Democratic ticket at the ballot box.”
So far, at least, Clinton has not come directly after Palin and, if this blog post from Clinton advisor Howard Wolfson is any indication, she’s unlikely to do so anytime in the future:
I have been asked repeatedly over the last several days to respond to the idea that Hillary Clinton will soon be dispatched by the Obama campaign to “take Palin on.”
Don’t hold your breath. It’s not going to happen.
It’s not in Hillary Clinton’s interest, and its certainly not in the interest of Barack Obama and the Democratic party.
You may not remember, but Hillary Clinton is at her best staying positive and contrasting with her opponents on issues. She has already been stumping for Senator Obama leading up to the convention and will be stumping for him as much as Senator Obama wants her to between now and the election.
In other words, Hillary Clinton is going to campaign for Obama, but she’s going to do so on her own terms and in a manner that suits her interests as much as those of the campaign:
HILLARY Clinton may be the most obvious choice to throw into the ring against the new darling of American politics, Sarah Palin, but the failed Democratic presidential candidate is refusing the job.
“We’re not going to be anybody’s attack dog against Sarah Palin,” a Clinton insider said yesterday.
It’s an extraordinary act of hubris from a woman whose success in exposing Barack Obama’s weakness in working-class Democratic states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana may have been the reason that John McCain chose a gun-toting, God-loving mother of five as his running mate.
Although she is 60 and unlikely to have another shot at the White House, Clinton is apparently concerned that she would appear ungenerous to the Republicans’ first female vice-presidential candidate if she were to go after her.
It is a rationale that will fuel the belief - lingering among Democrats since Al Gore’s failed 2000 presidential run - that the Clintons always put themselves before their party.
The Clintons putting themselves first ? Perish the thought.
