Cold Fusion: History Suggests an Obama-Clinton Ticket Could Work [View All]

[BobbyVan]

Cold Fusion
History suggests an Obama-Clinton ticket could work.
By David Greenberg
Posted Thursday, May 22, 2008, at 7:00 AM ET

For all the excitement he has generated, Barack Obama—should he maintain his delegate lead over Hillary Clinton—will be the Democratic Party's weakest standard-bearer since primaries became the necessary route to securing the presidential nomination. No candidate has ever concluded these preliminary contests with so many rank-and-file Democrats against him. Obama badly needs to win over Clinton supporters, some of whom deeply resent the demonization of her as hysterical, ruthless, and racist and are talking of bolting or staying home in November.

The easiest way for Obama to unify the party would be to make Clinton his running mate. Indeed, the idea of a "dream ticket" or "unity ticket" has been in the air for months. CNN's Wolf Blitzer proposed it, to deafening applause, in January. In March, Mario Cuomo pushed the idea in the Boston Globe.

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It's unclear whether Obama shares the qualities that Kennedy and Reagan showed in forging their unity tickets: the self-assurance not to fear being upstaged, the magnanimity to overlook the primary-season fisticuffs. And it's equally unclear whether Clinton would even want to sit through eight years of an Obama presidency and then, at age 68, endure another 16 months of hell of the sort she's now finally concluding—with no greater chance of emerging victorious. Surely, for her, the more gratifying course would be to achieve the historical first of having her name placed in nomination for the presidency at the Democratic convention and gaining a near-majority of ballots. With dignity, she could then pursue other distinctions, whether Senate majority leader or associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Then again, in 1960 the smart money said that Lyndon Johnson would never settle for the vice presidency, either.

http://www.slate.com/id/2191942/

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