Though overall a close race, Barack Obama has secured the Democratic Nomination. The super delegates got what they wanted, the DNC got what it wanted, as did a good portion of congress.

Now Obama faces a fork in the political road, with a simple choice: unite the Democratic Party or very possibly face oblivion in the fall.

The first choice is not the most attractive one, and the road will no doubt be bumpy, the other choice, which could be characterized as "having my cake and eating it too," seems to make sense, but in reality is the risky one.

Hillary Clinton has nearly half of all Democrats as supporters, that is a lot of Democrats, the ones I know personally swear they will not vote for Obama under any circumstances, but I believe most would eventually come along, should Obama select Clinton as his running mate. Hillary, and Bill for that matter, are tireless campaigners, and could be a great asset to the Democrats in the fall.

My personal guess though, is that Obama rejects the notion of Hillary as VP, I read it in his recent responses: "I'm sure that we can unify the Democratic Party," note, careful not to just come out and ask Clinton to join him on the ticket.

Clinton has a thing with Latinos, and big states, and swing states, in contrast Obama has won many small red states (like my Nebraska) which will likely stay red in the fall, add to this his neck and neck running with McCain in the polls and this could quite likely be a recipe for disaster for Obama.

I think Barack Obama needs Hillary Clinton, and for the sake of the country, I hope he realizes this now, and not in the fall.

Phoen-X

....for him to continue to portray himself as the "agent of change" if he selects the poster girl for "Business As Usual" for a running mate. So I believe he'll give a speech, say a lot of nice things about Hillary, and then select someone else. Of course, I've been wrong before.

.....for whatever it's worth:

Blunt as always, Pennsylvania's Governor tells NY1 News:

There's no bargaining. You don't bargain with the Presidential nominee. Even if you're Hillary Clinton and you have 18 million votes, you don't bargain.

Rendell was also refreshingly direct on the difficulty Bill Clinton would pose.

"The Obama campaign would have to make strict rules, you know, about what President Clinton could and could not do during the campaign... For example, the Obama campaign would have to control his schedule; where he would go into, what states," Rendell told Dominic Carter.

"You know, normally politicians don't want to be outshone. Well you know you've got Bill Clinton lurking in the background. But Hillary Clinton, a very charismatic figure for many Americans -- generally a lot of
politicians don't like to put somebody like that on the ticket," said Rendell. "You know rule one for the vice president is make sure you never upstage the president, right? It's rule one. You know, Hillary Clinton in some ways couldn't help but upstage, even if she was trying not to"

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Here's what I hope is happening:

Obama plans to ask Clinton to be VP, but has a sense for stagecraft and will leave it an open question until the convention, at least as far as the general public is concerned -- letting enough hints leak to make Clinton's supporters less resentful, but keeping enough mystery that it's still a dramatic moment at the convention when it's announced.

Here's what I fear is happening:

Obama sees himself as too holy to be besmirched by sharing a ticket with a mere politician like Clinton, and is holding out for some "Changer" in his own image for VP. He figures he doesn't need the centrists and the white working class and the Hispanics and the Asians and the older folks to beat McCain, but can instead rely on a Rove-style appeal for mass turnout in the base, riding a wave of enthusiasm from young people and blacks to the White House. He figures it worked for the primary, so why not for the general election, notwithstanding how much smaller those demographics are relative to the full electorate.

There's no saying for sure what's really going on. I suspect something closer to the latter scenario, though. Obama strikes me as have your typical cult figure's deranged self regard and overweening arrogance. I think he may really have swallowed his own rhetoric about changing politics, such that he thinks he doesn't have to play by the rules of the past. Who cares if blacks and young people have never before had the turnout needed to carry a national election?! He wants to do it his way or not at all.

I sure hope I'm wrong.

You could very well be right, and if so, it could very well mean war.

Dave

Arkady:

Here's what I hope is happening:

Obama plans to ask Clinton to be VP, but has a sense for stagecraft and will leave it an open question until the convention, at least as far as the general public is concerned -- letting enough hints leak to make Clinton's supporters less resentful, but keeping enough mystery that it's still a dramatic moment at the convention when it's announced.

Here's what I fear is happening:

Obama sees himself as too holy to be besmirched by sharing a ticket with a mere politician like Clinton, and is holding out for some "Changer" in his own image for VP. He figures he doesn't need the centrists and the white working class and the Hispanics and the Asians and the older folks to beat McCain, but can instead rely on a Rove-style appeal for mass turnout in the base, riding a wave of enthusiasm from young people and blacks to the White House. He figures it worked for the primary, so why not for the general election, notwithstanding how much smaller those demographics are relative to the full electorate.

There's no saying for sure what's really going on. I suspect something closer to the latter scenario, though. Obama strikes me as have your typical cult figure's deranged self regard and overweening arrogance. I think he may really have swallowed his own rhetoric about changing politics, such that he thinks he doesn't have to play by the rules of the past. Who cares if blacks and young people have never before had the turnout needed to carry a national election?! He wants to do it his way or not at all.

I sure hope I'm wrong.

So do I.

Dave

choose Hllary, is to make her sign a 'pre-nuptial' agreement, edited and changed to fit the position.

Main thing is that he will not tolerate another man (Bill Clinton) in the relationship AT ALL!

Add to that the words that she swears to OBEY Obama at ALL TIME, and not try to run the presidency from the Veep position, as Cheney has done! In other words, that she accepts the conventional position of a VEEP....representing the US at funerals, and the normal duties expected from the person in that position.

In other wors, that she be 'seen' t times, but not 'heard' if she oversteps her duties.

Wonder if she would still be interested under those conditions? I suspect not.

In our nation's history, how many female vice presidents have there been? Zero. In the whole history of the nation, a demographic that includes more than half of all citizens has never once been represented at that level. For Clinton to do so would be a hell of a change, wouldn't it?

Besides, Hillary Clinton is nearly as far away as one can get from the "business as usual" we've seen over the past eight years of Bush-league incompetence. Sure, she was never as fond of dumbly mouthing empty platitudes about change as Obama is, but her campaign literature was filled with far more detailed strategies for actually acheiving change than anything he ever offered.

"Business as usual" would be for the Democrats to be so crippled by the egos of their leaders that they tear eachother apart, allowing numerically-much-weaker Republicans to win again. If Obama is genuinely interested in change, he's got to realize that picking Clinton is his best hope of avoiding that. Unfortunately, I suspect the same as you do. He'll make the "business as usual" call and set the Democrats up for failure. The difference between you and I, though, is that I'd consider McCain's election to be a terrible tragedy for the nation, where you might well celebrate it.

Today, many of the Clinton faithful are bitter and angray. Three months down the road,at least some of that fury will likely dissipate (although that may seem impossible to some right now). And we'll see were things stand then.......

....select a woman. Why not?

But i don't think it will be that one.

Just my opinion of course.

is, well, he probably can't. MAYBE with Bill Richardson as VP but that will still piss off a heck of a lot of women.

Good analysis, DPHX. And as one of those people you know who swears they will NOT vote for him in November, you can take my NO VOTE to the bank, Mister. :-)

"L."

Of course they'd need to come to an understanding about the extent of power Hillary Clinton would have, etc. But that's not particular to her. It would be the same with anyone. Anyone fit to be a VP is used to having a whole lot of power in his or her own right, and there will always be the need to meld those egos together. Bill Clinton did it nicely with Al Gore and Kennedy did with Johnson, and in both those cases, as with Obama/Clinton, the undercard was the more experienced player.

As for Bill Clinton, he would be an extraordinary asset for Obama, both during the campaign and during the presidency. In the campaign, he's a great fundraiser, a tireless campaigner, and a personality who has the ability to connect with precisely the "bubba" voters Obama has failed to woo. Once Obama's presidency starts, Bill Clinton's interest in Africa and in third-world poverty would dovetail very nicely with Obama's themes, without stepping on Obama's toes. Sure, there might be a time or two when Bill goes "off message" and pisses off his wife's boss, but any minor damage that would do would be vastly offset by his value as an unofficial ambassador to the world.

Bill Clinton, like all former presidents, will have a miniature version of the bully pulpit, whether Obama picks Hillary Clinton or not. Jimmy Carter didn't exactly have to have his wife serving as Bush's VP to make lots of news with his alternative Middle East policy and his advocacy of liberal domestic policies. So, the fretting on this subject is a bit weird when you stop and think about it. Bill Clinton will have the power to go "off message" and to take the press along for the ride whether his wife's in legislative branch or the executive branch. He'll have pretty much the same access to inside information either way, and his words will be considered highly newsworthy even if his wife retired tomorrow.

The difference is that if Bill Clinton perceives his wife as part of the same team as Obama, rather than as someone Obama stepped on to get ahead, it'll be much easier to rein him in. When you have someone as brilliant, energetic, charismatic, and world famous as Bill Clinton, it's better if he perceives himself as an unofficial member of your team than as the aggreived husband of a vanquished foe.

He'll need to pick a woman who is ready to step in and be the leader of the free world and the commander of the military. There are a small handful of women who can legitimately claim that in the Democratic Party, but not many. Clinton is one. None of the others provide the ability Clinton does to quickly heal the festering wounds from this primary.

No surpr TOise from me and I'll be villified all over again and I could care less. I don't want either Clinton anywhere near the WH Why in the world would he choose Hillary when she represents everything Obama has been fighting against? As great as the Clintons were in the 90s, they've had their turn.

Let's get something straight. The DNC, Congress and the Dems did NOT give the nomination to Obama. The voters did. Harold Ickes is on the rules committee and was a part of making the rules. There were several Hillary supporters on the rules committee. Those were the people who set the rules. They had no objections to the rules at that time. When the committee voted to penalize MI and FL for violating the rules, it was THAT COMMITTEE THAT VOTED UNANIMOUSLY TO TAKE 100 % OF THE DELEGATES AWAY FROM THEM AND SAID THOSE STATES WOULDN'T COUNT. THE COMMITTEE GAVE THEM 50%. As many times as I've posted this, not one Hillary will put the blame squarely with the Clinton camp. They moved the goal clear off the playing fields with their constant demands to change the rules. Hillary didn't give a tinker's damn about the voters in either state until she got wolloped in SC.

That wasn't enough of a consession for the mighty Clinton camp so the moved the goal post again--clear off the field and dmanded that Obama not get any votes, pretending that he didn't get a single vote. There's a way to settle this. Go to courts, have the voting records unsealed, contact each of those "uncommitted voters" and determine who they wanted to cast their votes for.

BTW, go look at the electoral map today, there are some new white states and Indiana is one of them. Even though Hillary won IN by 2%, polls on the map yesterday showed Hillary losing to McCain by five points. Obama is tied with McCain and he did this without the help of Hillary supporters. VA is another one. He's making it on his own with a different map strategy. IN hasn't been Dem for decades!

After hearing Hillary's defiant speech last night, totally lacking in any graciousness, Every newspaper I've read today has slammed Hillary for that. A lot of her most ardent supporters are saying they'reembarrassed about it. I don't want to see her or Bill near thw WH, let alone on a ticket. And notice to her supporters: Choosing who's going to fill the vp spot is not up to Hillary nor her supporters. That's a right Obama and Obama alone has. If you want to vote for McCain, go for it but don't complain when you get four more years of PNAC/Bush/Cheney. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

No, Obama does NOT have to pick a woman. I don't know one single woman who's fought her way through the glass ceiling who would want to picked because of her gender. That's an insult. We want to be chosen for our smarts, not because of gender. Been there. Done that.