NO VEEP SLOT FOR HILLARY
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on May 13, 2008.
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It would be an act of terminal insanity for Barack Obama to name
Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential candidate. It would not help
him get elected, it would drag all the Clinton controversies into the
general election, and having her down the hall in the West Wing would
be a recipe for disaster, dissension and civil war. Other than that,
it=92s a hell of an idea!
Start with the election. There are two kinds of people who backed
Hillary in the primaries: her original sup****ters and those who joined
her later in the game. Her original backers are all solid Democrats
whose arms would fall off before they would back anyone who is pro-
life. They are true believers, feminists, pro-choice advocates, older
party loyalists who would prefer Hillary, may have doubts about Obama,
but will always fall in line and vote Democratic. The more recent
converts are people who are turned off by Obama=92s connection to the
Rev. Jeremiah Wright and who worry that he might be a closet black
radical. Their latent racial fears were heightened by the revelations
about Obama=92s links with Wright, and they voted for Hillary as the
lesser of two evils. Putting Mrs. Clinton on the ticket will do
nothing to assuage these fears. One wonders if these blue-collar,
downscale, racially motivated voters would actually sup****t Hillary
against John McCain if she were to win the nomination. They certainly
wouldn=92t follow her into Obama=92s camp just because she was on the
ticket.
Obama=92s key need in the election is to demonstrate his experience and
ability to do the job despite only minimal federal experience. Running
with someone whose experience he, himself, derided will hardly solve
this problem. Voters only credit Hillary with having experience when
her record is compared with Obama=92s almost total lack of a record.
Against McCain, she would do nothing to close the experience gap.
Better for Obama to choose a senator with long tenure =97 a Chris Dodd
(Conn.) or Joseph Biden (Del.) =97 just as Dukakis chose Bentsen, Bush
chose Cheney, and Kennedy chose Johnson.
If Obama put Hillary on the ticket, it would re-raise all of the
questions about Bill=92s income sources, what he did for Dubai, what he
did for Frank Guistra =97 the Canadian mining executive who gave
millions to the Clinton library and whom Bill introduced to the
president of Kazakhstan =97 and whether he will make public his library
donors. Who needs those issues, especially when Obama is trying to
wage an anti-Wa****ngton-influence-peddling campaign?
Finally, having Hillary in the West Wing would be a nightmare. There
is no way that Obama could trust her. She would be a throwback to the
old days when the president did not consult the vice president on
anything, a situation which led Vice President John Nance Garner,
FDR=92s VP during his first two terms, to call the office =93not worth a
pitcher of warm piss.=94
If Obama got into trouble, he would have to look over his shoulder at
Hillary and he would always have both Bill and Hillary around to show
him up, hog the limelight, generate controversy with ill-considered
remarks, and make life difficult. Would Bill stop giving speeches and
making money? Would his ties with Arab nations and questionable
American and Canadian businessmen end? Or would Obama have to explain
his VP=92s husband=92s business dealings over and over again.
And, the ultimate question: Can Bill Clinton be put back into the
bottle? Is this recent spate of angry, finger-wagging bursts of
inappropriate outrage a permanent fixture of his public persona? Does
Obama want to take the risk of having him on the team and having to
account for his conduct?
Hillary would add no votes to Obama, she would dog his campaign with
scandal, she would be disloyal in office, and her husband would be, at
best, a huge distraction. Case closed.
Go To DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns!
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