Beckel says VP slot is Hillary's if she wants it

[Alhena]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/if_clinton_wants_to_be_vp_obam.html

This article makes the most overlooked point in this whole VP discussion- the VP nomination is a position that the DELEGATES at the convention vote on, and Hillary will arive with 46% of the delegates in her pocket. All she needs to do is sway enough superdelegates and she's the VP whether Obama likes it or not.

Hillary is not my first choice, but I just don't think it's worth the political capital it would require to deny her the spot if she really wants it. What kind of convention will we have if Obama is having to work the phones to keep Hillary from getting even the second spot? It would look terrible to women voters in particular.

[thunder rising]

1. Then he woke to find it was only a dream...SDs will not have that anchor around the President.

[searchingforlight]

2. It would not be a very smart move for Hillary to take the spot.

She can be much more powerful for much longer as the Senator from NY.

[WillyToad]

39. Yeah, right, being vice president is nothing compared to....

....being one of hundreds of senators.

[BeyondGeography]

3. What does Jekyll say?

[lligrd]

4. I Seriously Doubt That Scenario nt

[peacebird]

5. It would look smart to this woman voter if Obama refused to have HRC as VP

She has nothing positive to offer the ticket.

And frankly I do not trust her anymore.

[Cha]

15. May sound corny but I have built up

a trust in Obama that tells me ..he will not to that to us, the country, and himself.

I don't know care or know who beckel is but I'm guessing he wants controversary.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

43. Bob "Where's the beef?" Beckel.

Yep.

[roseBudd]

20. She does not bring a state nor does she bring military gravitas especially after

Snipergate

[newmajority]

6. Who gives a flying fuck what Beckel says?

And why is it that the ONLY people saying this crap, are known Clinton suckups??

[Alhena]

14. I thought Beckel supported Obama

I remember how PO'ed he was when the Wright story broke- he was angry because he thought it would give Hillary the nomination according to a report I read.

[tokenlib]

7. Obama could make the pick before the convention....

..in an attempt to short circuit the Clinton people. Not all Clinton people are going to be trying to force her on the ticket. Some of them actually believe the nominee should pick their running mate.

Actually, with the convention being so late--it is likely the pick will be made in advance..

[Alhena]

He can pick whoever he wants, but the delegates actually make it happen

As I said in my post, I expect he could expend enough political capital to deny Hillary the second spot. But if he did, she and her supporters would probably make the convention a disaster. I just don't think it would be worth it. I wish Hillary didn't want the VP spot, but she apparently does and having 46% of the delegates at the convention, as well as strong connections to most of the superdelegates, means she has a lot to say in this regard. The Obama supporters thinking otherwise are deluding themselves.

[CoffeeCat]

17. I don't agree that the likely President of the United States...

...should kow tow to a bunch of people just because they will wreck havoc at the convention.

Let them.

Just because she lost to Obama, does not mean she's entitled to the vp slot.

Obama gets to choose.

They're have been convention battles just as contentious, if not more so, than this one.

I don't recall those winners selecting the political opponent with whom they were engaged in battle.

I wish people would just stop. Quit defining reality--with Hillary Clinton and her magical wrath
at the epicenter of the universe. No one is going to die or explode if Hillary doesn't get her way.

Obama will pick his vp. It won't be Hillary. Life will move on.

[tritsofme]

24. Obama doesn't "get" to choose.

It usually works out that way, but delegates nominate the VP, not a candidate.

[CoffeeCat]

40. We'll see...

If Obama wants her, that's fine.

However, how would a Presidency work if he was forced to pick her, and he
really hated her with a white-hot passion.

I doubt the delegates would usurp the will of our nominee. Much in the same
way that the Super delegates would not usurp the will of the people, as Hillary
suggested continuously.

Are we back to asserting things that are never going to happen?

Obama will select a running mate. The delegates will confirm that person. End of story.

Enough with the outrageous possibilities--all of which defy common sense and benefit Hillary Clinton.

Aren't you guys tired of leveraging her with these outrageous, extraordinary scenarios?

[LTR]

46. Typically, the VP pick comes a few weeks prior to the convention

Kerry announced Edwards two weeks prior to the '04 convention.

I don't expect to see a VP selection until early August. It will be enough time to get the whole primary mess out of everyone's systems, and gauge where the party's going, sans Clinton.

[Swamp Rat]

8. Who is "Beckel?"

:shrug:

[Alhena]

11. Bob Beckel- he was Mondale's campaign manager. A good Dem who knows how the process works

[Swamp Rat]

16. Ah, the born-again Christian, Washington insider who is regularly on FUX Noise..

No thanks. I've had enough of people like him.

[Generic Brad]

44. Was that photo taken around 3:00 AM?

Good to know she's still up after midnight.

[Swamp Rat]

45. Earlier, right before she changed into a...

:D

[NanceGreggs]

9. Well, I gues that settles it, then.

If Beckel says it, it must be so. I keep forgetting he's the last word when it comes to how the country is run.

:sarcasm:

[grantcart]

21. But he is right on one point and that is if Hillary is so obsessed with it

that she wants to fight for it she will have enough support to bring it to the floor.

Nobody wants a floor fight so there may be no alternative.

I mean how rational a team player does she appear to be?


After her 3rd place in Iowa I asked a friend of mine how much humiliation would she be willing to put up with to stay in the campaign. He had a two word reply

Blue Dress.

The Clintons are not going to not do it because it might be embarassing - they are way beyond that. It is all power brass knuckles now and they seem to want the VP almost as bad as the Presidency.

[David Zephyr]

47. LOL.

Thanks.

[CoffeeCat]

10. It's the President's choice...

Listen, I spent the last year, experiencing Hillary and her crass air of inevitability toward the
Presidency.

Please tell me I don't have to listen to another round of her crass, self-centered bullshit
about how she's entitled to the vp slot.

For the love of Pete...this is so insane.

The President selects the vp, based on with whom he wants to work during the next four years. He
must trust that person and be philosophically in line with that person. He must see that
person as bringing something special to the ticket--that jives with his politics and eithics. It's
his decision. He's earned the right to make that decision.

Not Hillary.

I'm really done with Hillary's sense of entitlement.

[qijackie]

13. Don't be silly. Plenty of P-VP pairs didn't get along at all.

[CoffeeCat]

38. Obama doesn't seem like the type...

...of political hack who would pick a running mate for
purely political, easy reasons.

This is a new kind of politics, after all.

[IDemo]

12. The third time, minimum, this article has been posted this week

And the third time, minimum, it has been wrong.

[goletian]

18. thats a death sentence

[kwenu]

19. Let me know when Beckel becomes the nominee. Then I'll pay attention.

[ccharles000]

22. Hillary would make a wonderful VP.

[grantcart]

23. I don't care what you think of Beckel he is right

Give you an example

Rep McDermott WA just endorsed Obama. His district and state are for Obama why did he wait?

Because when he had all his legal bills from the radio message litigation Bill Clinton got on a plane and flew to Washington and had a fund raiser and retired his bills.

Guys like that may say no to Hillary once but not twice.

Clinton has built up 20 years of IOUs and they showed everyone just what happens when you blow up that bridge with Richardson.

If she really wants it - and I think she does - it will be very hard to deny it.

Her whole campaign for the last 4 weeks has not been to show that she can win the nomination but how much she brings as a VP.

[aasleka]

27. Hillary is impotent and everyone knows it.

[grantcart]

28. lol just because she barely missed on the nomination she can still do a great deal of harm

and that is her power. If she gives Obama a perfunctory endorsement it will hurt - a floor fight at the convention over FL and MI will hurt.

[thoughtcrime1984]

33. They should penalize MI and FLA 1/2, no SD's, count MI uncommitted for O

and just end it. He has the Sd's to get the nom, this stupid MI FLA shit will finally be over, and we'll have a strong candidate who is FREE to choose his own running mate. One that will be more effective and trustworthy than you know who.

[aasleka]

41. She is tens of millions of dollars in debt, she has no backers and is fronting a campaign

She blew a huge lead, name recognition, judgemnent calls, a huge machine, she had everything and blew it. Nobody has faith in her hence the lack of fundraising and her funding her own campaign.

You may believe she still weilds authourity or power but she hasn't really had any to people who have been paying attention since mid February.

How will she convince people a month from now after she is further in debt and losing by a larger margin that she should force a VP slot on Obama? She can't; pinch yourself , click your heels, whatever, wake up.

[thoughtcrime1984]

30. Which is net negative

I'd rather have an effective gov't then risk having her and Bill trying to hamstring Obama at every turn. I'd be pretty nervous for his safety also, because a change of Presidents would just slam us right back into the same old shit that we say we are supposedly tired of. I'm not saying the Clintons would try to take Obama down, but there could be criminals from the current admistration that would recognize the benefits of a Hillary Presidency and would absolutely do whatever it takes to get away with their crimes. I will not back down from that statement, and I would lose much enthusiasm for the party if she worms her way onto the ticket. Enough of the Clintons self-gratification. Enough!

[anamnua]

25. No way !!

I keep posting this over and over again. She is a woman of intelligence, class, and integrity and she has political nous. She is not going to end up as Obama's political mudguard even if he got down on both knees and pleaded with her. There is no way she will diminish herself by associating with this pseudomessiah.This woman of maturity is simply not going to play second fiddle to a character with the resume the size of a postage stamp.

[Mags]

26. My God, I hope not.

[crankychatter]

29. I don't believe it... I think Obama will have the requisite number without her delegates

then that bargain is out the window

[DemGa]

31. It's Obama's only shot at winning

However, I feel Obama would still likely lose in the GE, even with Clinton running as VP.

After the way these people have worked for the destruction of the Clintons, I would hate to see Hillary lose it all with Barack Obama.

[Blondiegrrl]

37. Bullshit. She's only be a detriment to his campaign.

Her presence would be a constant reminder that she repeatedly implied that John McCain would make a better president than Obama. The GOP would have a field day.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[high density]

34. Sorry, but the loser does not choose the VP slot for the winner

Another lame brained idea from the die hard Clinton camp.

[thoughtcrime1984]

35. Exactly. It is just as important to get the VP he wants as it is to win the nom, in my opinion

[Peace Patriot]

36. It could be just as ruinous to the Democratic Party to force a VP candidate on the

presidential nominee, as to endure a knockdown dragout fight against Clinton supporters, to keep the nominee's right to pick his VP in tact.

Either thing could be disastrous. And what if Obama doesn't want Clinton (and I'm pretty sure he doesn't), and has Clinton foisted upon him? What does that say about him and his leadership? What message does that send about the party's faith in him? What troubles might lay ahead in such a campaign? And if they managed to win--how could Obama work with a VP who had (to some extent) run a racist strategy against him? (--such a personal insult, as well as unethical.)

It's just too volatile, too wrong. And surely most Clinton delegates will see this. Likely only a few are such diehards as to want to weaken the nominee in this way, and turn the campaign, and the administration (if they could win in that circumstance), into a bed of nails for the Democratic candidate.

True, devil's marriages like this, of opposite and contentious people as president and V-P candidates (and administrations), have occurred. JFK and LBJ come to mind. But it is not wise. It the sort of backroom deal that party bosses used to make, and I'm afraid that, in this circumstance, it would have a very heavy meaning. It would not just mean that a particular candidate was foisted upon the nominee; it would mean that the old political establishment--the pro-war, pro-corporate Bush enablers of the DLC--would have neutralized Obama, his supporters and the new politics that they advocate, and would have retained a big foothold from which to do great mischief to an Obama adminsitration, including trying to seize back the party machinery for restoring a top-down, anti-grass roots organization. It would be a huge slap in the face to Obama's amazing supporters, who have fought so hard for a new direction for the party and the country.

Obama will most likely arrive at the convention with the delegate votes to win the nomination on the first round. It is VERY UNLIKELY, in my opinion, that those same delegates would then turn around and strike him down, by voting for someone he DOESN'T WANT as his VP. They will instead want to know who he wants, and they will give him what he wants.

Clinton risks all her power in the party if she does this--forces herself on Obama as VP. The likelihood is that the convention delegates would hand her a major defeat, if she tries it. It is far better for the party--and for her career--that she sit back now and play the wise broker. She surely has delegate power at the convention. To use it for such a purpose would be very unwise. What could she use it for? How about to get Obama to back the Equal Rights Amendment? That's a win-win for both of them. That would rally the women who supported Clinton because of women's rights. And it would put McBush in a very awkward position. Someone here at DU proposed this the other day. I can't remember who. It is a fabulous idea. Clinton could head the new Obama commission to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. She would thus go down in history with a REALLY BIG VICTORY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, and remove the smell of the Colombia death squads that Mark Penn brought to her campaign.

[Samantha]

42. Historically, the selection of the VP belongs singularly to the

candidate. Each presidential season, near convention time, we have always been reminded of that inasmuch as EVERYONE starts pushing for his or her own favorite, spinning all the time as they do. I do not think THIS CONVENTION will break from tradition, regardless of what rumors Bill and Hillary have surrogates float.

If Obama becomes the nominee, the selection will be his choice. And Hillary and Bill will have to live with whatever that choice is.

And that's it in a nutshell.

Sam