Common Sense Political Thought

There are some interesting stories out there about the fact that Senator Barack Hussein Obama (D-IL) did not select Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) as his running mate. Maggie Hagerman of the New York Post wrote:

Sen. Barack Obama’s decision to pick Sen. Joe Biden instead of former challenger Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton left insiders in her camp disappointed - and thinking he missed a great opportunity.

Several said they understood the logic behind choosing Biden - his foreign policy credentials are second to none in the field of people Obama surveyed for the job - but thought Clinton was equally qualified.

“I think the two of them together would beat John McCain,” said one Clinton insider, adding that with Biden: “In a week, we’re not going to be talking about his pick, he’s going to be right back where he was (in the polls).”

“I can’t give you an answer, I don’t think anybody else can,” said longtime Clinton friend and donor Alan Patricof.

“I frankly can’t understand why, and I assume he must have some reasons that are unknown to me, but he’s thought all the issues out and weighed all the factors … and decided (someone else) is the best.”

The JammieWearingFool wrote:

Sounds like there will be hell to pay.

Has Hillary launched that 2012 campaign yet?

Obviously, there are reasons why Obama decided against Mrs. Clinton. Like they hate each others guts, for example.

Well, duhhh!

Allahpundit of Hot Air addressed the interesting notion of the delegates putting Mrs Clinton’s name in nomination for vice president:

I groused to a friend yesterday about how insane it is that nominees have to contest 50 grueling primaries/caucuses to win the nomination but the next in line to the throne if they’re elected is chosen purely on their own say so. If the wisdom of Democratic voters is trustworthy enough to pick the top half of the ticket (superdelegates notwithstanding), why isn’t it trustworthy enough to pick the bottom half? If Hillary was a little older and had no shot at a run in 2016, I wonder whether she wouldn’t drop the good-soldier pretense she’s displaying now and take a shot at this idea.

Emphasis mine.

Allah got one thing wrong: it isn’t that Mrs Clinton is concerned about whether she has a shot in 2016; it’s that Mrs Clinton thinks she has a shot in 2012!

Despite running an awful campaign, and all of the absolutely wonderful statements still out there by Mrs Clinton about Mr Obama’s inexperience and unfitness for the job of President of the United States, she has done one thing extremely, extremely well: she has made every right move to position herself to run in 2012. When the end was near, she publicly offered to serve as Mr Obama’s vice presidential running mate, despite having said during the campaign that he should be her vice presidential running mate, so that she could tutor him in the presidency. Now she’s saying All The Right Things about how Democrats should all get behind Senator Obama. But, just as in 2004, where she did virtually nothing for Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign, because she wanted to run in 2008, and could not had Mr Kerry won, she’ll continue to say All The Right Things, and even make a (forced) campaign appearance or two with Mr Obama, but she doesn’t want him to win and it will be obvious that she doesn’t want him to win.

It’s very simple: Hillary Clinton cannot run in 2012 if Barack Obama wins in 2008; she’d have to wait until 2016. If Mrs Clinton has to wait until 2016, she’ll:

• Be 69 years old instead of 65 in 2012; and
• Be either following a two-term Democratic presidency, or facing a Republican incumbent who was strong enough to defeat President Obama in 2012.

But if Mr Obama loses in 2008, Mrs Clinton will:

• Be 65 years old, and facing an incumbent Republican president who is 76 years old;
• Facing an incumbent completing the third consecutive Republican presidential term.

That is a very similar situation to what her husband faced in 1992, though the age difference between Bill Clinton and the elder President Bush was significantly greater, 22 years.

It seemed to me that Mrs Clinton was setting up for a run in 2012 long before she bowed out of the 2008 campaign. She went strong on the race card, just as I had predicted a couple days earlier.

Now the appeals based on race are gone, over, finished, but Mrs Clinton’s work here has been done. A race that ought to be a landslide for the Democratic presidential nominee, due to an unpopular Republican president completing his second term, a war which isn’t popular even though we’re now close to victory — not that the professional media would write about it any more — and an economy that is, if not actually in a recession, is seen as performing poorly, is actually pretty close right now. Most of the polls have had Mr Obama leading by a couple of percentage points, but at least one Zogby/Reuters poll of likely voters had Senator McCain with a lead of five percentage points.

It’s pretty simple: if Senator Obama loses in November, Senator Clinton can go to the Democrats and say, in effect, “I told you so.” She can point to her message of the latter half of the campaign that she could have defeated John McCain — obviously a guess, since we’ll never know — and that an inexperienced man like Mr Obama could not. She will have to keep her mouth shut about race, not say another word about it, but everyone will know what she means. By having offered to be the good soldier and serve as Mr Obama’s running mate, she’s covered her butt on that issue; since it was Mr Obama who rejected her, and not the other way around, she’s sitting pretty. The fact that she won 18 million votes in the Democratic primaries this year, actually slightly more than Mr Obama — depending on the counting rules — will simply add to her argument.

There’s just one thing left: Barack Obama has to lose in November! She can’t be seen as actually aiding in the noble cause of defeating Mr Obama, but she’ll do what she can; count on it!