Just say no to an Obama/Clinton ticket

Well, it’s happened, after reading hundreds of thousands of Paul Krugman’s words, he’s finally put together a string of words that I disagree with.

Here’s the tricky part, I don’t disagree with his description of the situation, but I completely disagree with his prescription. First, his description of the symptoms:

Mr. Obama will be the Democratic nominee. But he has a problem: many grass-roots Clinton supporters feel that she has received unfair, even grotesque treatment. And the lingering bitterness from the primary campaign could cost Mr. Obama the White House.

To the extent that the general election is about the issues, Mr. Obama should have no trouble winning over former Clinton supporters, especially the white working-class voters he lost in the primaries. His health care plan is seriously deficient, but he will nonetheless be running on a far more worker-friendly platform than his opponent.

From this, what does Krugman conclude? First, he reasonably suggests that both the Obama and Clinton camps need to come together, but then he goes too far. Here’s Krugman’s recommendation:

What about offering Mrs. Clinton the vice presidency? If I were Mr. Obama, I’d do it. Adding Mrs. Clinton to the ticket — or at least making the offer — might help heal the wounds of an ugly primary fight.

I just don’t see this happening because having Sen. Clinton on the ticket would undermine Sen. Obama’s major themes: Change and consistent opposition to the Iraq war. Now, are there practical reasons to offer Sen. Clinton the VP position? Yes, clearly. The question is, do the practical reason out weight the thematic and substantive reason that don’t make Sen. Clinton a good fit during a change election? And in my mind that question is already settled, and the answer is, No, Sen. Clinton would subtract more than what she would add to the Democratic ticket during this election cycle.

Sen. Obama goes on the offensive

I was concerned that Sen. Obama’s conciliatory tone earlier in the campaign signified that he would be reluctant to throw a punch. However, if this is any indication of how he’ll respond to republican attacks, well, then, I say Bring it! Because Sen. Obama is showing that he can counter punch, and that he’s not afraid to get bruised:

ABC News Sunlen Miller reports: Sen. Barack Obama went one step further today in his pushback against presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and President Bush on appeasement, suggesting that both Republicans have a problem with presidents past who have engaged in direct diplomacy.

“If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy, led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy because that’s what he did with [Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev, or Ronald Reagan, ’cause that’s what he did with [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, or Richard Nixon ’cause that’s what they did with [Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung],” Obama said in Roseburg, Ore. “That’s exactly the kind of diplomacy we need to keep us safe.”

If not Hillary, who?

The NY Times asks a good question, If not Hillary, who? The question can be made more explicit, If not a woman with Hillary’s experience, name recognition, command of policies, executive bearing, establishment backing and plain old tenacity, than just what sort of résumé must a woman have to be elected president?

The NY Times offers some potential candidates, and also a composite profile of what a successful female presidential candidate may look like. The composite profile mentions Chelsea Clinton’s demonstrated ability to be at ease before voters (like her father), and the discipline she showed (like her mother) while stumping for her mother.

Here’s the half joking composite that NY Times offers:

That woman will come from the South, or west of the Mississippi. She will be a Democrat who has won in a red state, or a Republican who has emerged from the private sector to run for governor. She will have executive experience, and have served in a job like attorney general, where she will have proven herself to be “a fighter” (a caring one, of course).

She will be young enough to qualify as postfeminist (in the way Senator Barack Obama has come off as postracial), unencumbered by the battles of the past. She will be married with children, but not young children. She will be emphasizing her experience, and wearing, yes, pantsuits.

Oh, and she may not exist.

Unfortunately the article does not explore in any serious way the gender related obstacles that Sen. Clinton was faced with, and which future female candidates will need to successfully navigate before a woman can occupy the Oval Office.

While I’m not going to list the obstacles that Sen. Clinton was faced with as a woman, I think that this quote from Dee Dee Myers sums up our political landscape fairly well (now, remember, though I started as an Edwards supporter, and have been an Obama supporter for a long while now, I still think that there’s a lot of truth in this statement):

“No woman with Obama’s résumé could run,” said Dee Dee Myers, the first woman to be White House press secretary, under Bill Clinton, and the author of “Why Women Should Rule the World.” “No woman could have gotten out of the gate.”

Indeed, if not Hillary, who? When will we catch up with other nations that have already elected a woman to their highest office? Countries such as Chile, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Brundi, Rwanda, Haiti, Peru, Jamaica and others (including Germany and England).

Mike Huckabee jokes about Sen. Obama being shot at

Mike Huckabee’s so-called joke about Sen. Obama being shot at is not only outrageous, it is also nonsensical. Here’s the quote, via PoliticalWire.com:

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak. Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

— Mike Huckabee, quoted by CNN at the National Rifle Association convention, referring to “an unexpected offstage noise.”

First of all, it’s not funny to joke about the assassination of the first potential African-American president, given our nation’s history. Second, the joke is nonsensical because jumping out of the way when a gun is aimed at one seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction, and it is certainly a lot smarter than just standing there as a static target.

What the hell was Huckabee even thinking about when he made such a stupid comment? Of course, he was speaking before the NRA, a solidly republican audience, and thus appealing to the base of the party, so there’s that to explain Huckabee’s asinine attempt at humor.

The Obama Factor

Here’s some evidence of what I’ve been thinking about may be possible with Sen. Obama as the Democratic nominee; and that’s that his candidacy represents such a game changer that all bets will be off come the general election, thus forcing republicans to play defense in areas of the country that they haven’t had to defend in a long time.

Here, let me let the NYTimes be more specific:

NEW ORLEANS — The sharp surge in black turnout that Senator Barack Obama has helped to generate in recent primaries and Congressional races could signal a threat this fall to the longtime Republican dominance of the South, according to politicians and voting experts.

Should Mr. Obama become the Democratic nominee, he would still have to struggle for white swing voters in the South and in border states like West Virginia, where he lost decisively to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Tuesday’s presidential primary. In West Virginia, where more than three-fourths of white voters chose Mrs. Clinton, 20 percent of the white voters said the race of the candidate mattered in their choice.

But in Southern states with large black populations, like Alabama, Mississippi and Virginia, an energized black electorate could create a countervailing force, particularly if conservative white voters choose not to flock to Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, predicts “the largest black turnout in the history of the United States” this fall if Mr. Obama is the nominee.

To hold these states, Republicans may have to work harder than ever. Already, turnout in Democratic primaries this year has substantially exceeded Republican turnout in states like Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Sure, Sen. Obama may not win the South, but that’s not the goal; rather, the goal is merely to force republicans to spend time and energy where they don’t need to, and for Sen. Obama to help candidates down ticket in the South and elsewhere.