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She is campaigning for VP. The real question that remains unseen now is whether or not the DNC will put pressure on Obama to take her.

Admittedly, it would make the race interesting, but it would also be 4 years of livin hell for Obama should he win.

Problem is Hillary - would - deliver demos to Obama that he is having trouble getting, but she would also fire up the Repub base to get out the vote.

In short, her negs and poisitives equal out and if it comes to that, Obama should say "no". As I said though, will the DNC allow him to do that or try to get him to repair the damage this fight has done to the Dem brand.

The Michigan- Florida scenario is also an interesting one.

Whether one likes it or not, it's pretty much unassailable empirical verity that there's a huge segment of the Democratic base that so far is wholly beyond Obama's reach. They may as well exist on different planets from each other. Two questions: 1) Will they go for McCain in November? 2) Is that possibility enough to justify giving Hillary the number 2 slot, which everyone knows would in that case really be the number 1a slot?

I too hope he says no. It will be interesting to see who the VP choice is for each side.

"it's pretty much unassailable empirical verity that there's a huge segment of the Democratic base that so far is wholly beyond Obama's reach."

How do I best respond to this?

Uh...

Yes.

Bullshit.

The game of spinning the primary race as verification of the general election is just plain crap. And even more so in this election, where the variation between the, no question, preferred Dem candidate of the older and poorer and the Republican nominee is so extreme.

Obama lost the states he lost to Clinton by 10 percent or less... and cut into her lead in every one of them, particularly Texas and Indiana, where he was so close to winning in the end. None of the races he lost since Super Tuesday had the trendline going against him... they were all moving towards his.

Yes, Clinton needs to express to her base that she is now aware that her former opponent is not The Devil. That is important.

But this illusion that Obama's real message cannot connect is solely a manufactured notion by the Clinton campaign and the right wing, seeking to say it enough to turn it into truth.

I'm not saying there aren't racists and youth-ists out there. But this notion that Hillary owns 48% of the Democratic base and this group won't move to Obama is silly... and exactly why Clinton should have dropped out of this race before she needed to go so negative for 2 months.

The hunger to win is back in the Democratic Party and I imagine that Clinton will feel more pressure to enthusiastically support Obama whenever than to get out fast. That is what will define her future and her legacy. If he does lose, it will be on her every bit as much as him. And she can't afford that.

It seems unlikely, for the simple fact that I have a hard time seeing her as willing to be second banana when she could have a perfectly good Senate career.

I'm not sure what 'damage' their fight has done to the 'Dem brand' aside from the traditional 'they're finding new ways to lose' idea. But having Hillary on the ticket would exacerbate that problem when moving forward with a new candidate, almost certainly from a Midwest or border South state, would help it.

David, I said "so far." I also said, "Will they go for McCain in November?" That's an open question, but to pretend no one is asking it, or that it's not possible that some of them will defect, is rather wishful thinking. Seriously, has it even occurred to you that Obama could lose in November? I expect that sort of utopian thinking from IO, not you.

Did you sort of just skip over what I wrote? Funny how you are always accusing everyone else of doing the same to you.

"Seriously, has it even occurred to you that Obama could lose in November?"

As the resident righty in these parts, I think Obama has a real shot at being the next president and if I was a betting man, that's how I would bet.

But as I have said all along, it will be close. There will be no Reagan like sweep and he will not be seen as the ointment to heal the country. North American culture (yes, it is like this in Canuckistan too) is far too fractured at this point in history.

Upshot is, I think Obama will win, but if he loses I will not be shocked. It will be a squeaker and McCain will not be the hoped for Bob Dole. He will do well in the debates.

Uh, Blackcloud... I pulled the whole quote from you directly. What are you talking about?

"so far is wholly beyond"

Wholly.

That is what we DON'T have evidence of. Not in the states he's won handily with tiny black populations, etc. And even within the Clinton constituency, we don't have evidence that anything is "wholly beyond" him, but that they chose her over him.

And of course Obama could lose in November. But the danger of losing has been framed by a nominating process that is not a reasonable reflection of a general election campaign, no matter how much the Clinton camp has sold that idea.

There are many spokes on The Wheel of Blame... and each circumstances lands differently.

I know the Meryl Streep playing Hillary Clinton nonsense is dead, gone, and overblown in the first place, but is anyone else reading this thinking back to Streep's first scene in The Manchurian Candidate remake where she's explaining how they will lose the election if they don't pick her son as VP? Think something similar to that conversation is going to happen, except with Hillary touting herself? Strangely, it's the first thing that popped into my head.

I think that her sliding into VP would be fine for short-term gains (Sealing up the election), but for the long-term good of the nation, it could be troublesome. Clinton doesn't strike me as someone who would willingly play second banana and I think there would be power struggles.

Of all the candidates, Obama strikes me as the LEADER of the three, and needs a VP that can provide support as well as add some skills and expertise Obama may be lacking. Who that would be, I don't know. I haven't dug extremely deep into everything, but I do know if him saying one thing and her saying another would be a constant thing in the White House, then it would be a mass of confusion that wouldn't do anyone much good. But then again, I'm one of those Midwesterners in the deep blue part of the Midwestern primaries who can't stand Hillary and feels everything she says and does is a calculation rather than a genuine concern and love for the people. I'm sure Obama does some of the same things, but at least I feel he's not telling me exactly what I want to hear all the time and can level with the people.

Blackcloud, isn't there a flip side to that? Aren't a lot of Republicans defecting? Newt Gingrich isn't so worried for nothing. I realize that the Republicans have had their nominee for a while now, but that doesn't mean they have no worries.

Stella, I think the flip side is how at the beginning of the primary season on the GOP side Huckabee was racking up big numbers with evangelical voters and winning in the South. Pundits wondered if McCain would every bridge that gap. Not everyone came around to him, but enough did to leave Huckabee adrift and clinch the nomination for McCain. Obviously, it is still a valid question whether or not McCain will be able to consolidate the base for the general election. No doubt, both sides have potential pitfalls in terms of getting parts of the base to vote for a nominee they didn't support in the primary.

Getting back to the Dems, my point about parts of Hillary's base being inaccessible so far to Obama applies in reverse. There are clearly segments of the electorate that are going for Obama that she has failed to reach in the primaries. It's not a one-way street, and I was clumsy in implying that it was. It goes both ways.

Republicans should be worried. Most of the advantages are on the Democratic side. The Democrats should win in November. It would be an upset if they lost. But upsets happen. And, as we were discussing the other day, the Dems have a great knack for screwing themselves over. By rights we should be discussing either Gore's successor or Kerry's re-election bid. We're not. I was trying to think the other day who gets written off more by the media, the Dems or the GOP. I couldn't decide. We are going to see plenty of stories in the coming months about how Obama has the advantage but should be worried anyway, the GOP has no shot and should kill themselves, etc. We don't know the future, and so we'll get lots of verbiage to fill the vacuum. If only for that reason, November can't arrive soon enough.

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