Vice President Clinton?

No.

But the question is going to be asked, oh, about 100 million times between now and whenever Obama announces his actual running mate. And it's going to be incredibly annoying. The media will be absolutely obsessed with the notion of a "dream ticket" -- in fact, this may be the MSM's compromise solution to the West Virginia/Kentucky dilemma, sticking with the "it's over" meme but presenting Clinton's landslide wins as evidence that she's "indispensible" -- and the Clintonistas, given their endless supply of self-centeredness, will be only too happy to add fuel to the fire (regardless of whether Hillary would actually accept the offer).

For once, I am in complete agreement with Kos, who wrote yesterday that the notion of Obama offering Clinton the #2 spot "should be a non-starter from the start.  This isn't a call based on bitterness or hate, but practical politics." (Hat tip: yea.) I agree with Kos's reasons, and I would also add the ones I articulated last month:

[T]here's no way the dream ticket happens now. Before bittergate, I thought it was possible*, but now, no way. How can Hillary be on a ticket with someone she has called an out-of-touch elitist who is unready to lead from day one? Not that she'd have any shame about it, mind you, but the constant repetition of those charges out of her mouth would provide such a constant drumbeat of "gotcha" moments that it would totally eviscerate any electoral benefits such a ticket would otherwise reap. Imagine the negative ads! "Even Barack Obama's runningmate says..." NO WAY. Will not happen. Crazy.

The reality is, for all the myopic gnashing of teeth right now (can teeth be myopic? nevermind), the bulk of Hillary's supporters will ultimately vote for Obama. We're talking about what happens on the margins here. It's not as if he's only going to get 51% of the Democratic base to vote for him. The issue here is whether he'll get 85% or 90% ... or something like that. Having Hillary on the ticket would be one way to make up that 5% (or whatever) -- while simultaneously shedding 10% (or whatever) among independents, liberal idealists, etc., and helping McCain shore up his base -- but it's not the only way, and it's by far the most destructive way. There are other running mates Obama can choose who will also help him make inroads into margins of Hillary's base that you're worrying about, without the devastating collateral consequences elsewhere in the electorate. Kathleen Sebelius would help with women. Ted Strickland [or Evan Bayh -ed.] would help with Rust Belt folks. (If only Jennifer Granholm weren't Canadian, she could do both!) Bill Richardson would help with Hispanics. Jim Webb would help with the working-class "tough guy" vote.    

There are lots of good options. Hillary is a bad option. Bad, bad, bad. There are ways he can make this work. Picking Hillary is suicide. It a) gains him a sliver of her base that he'd have otherwise lost, and b) loses him the election.

I actually think Obama would be well served to announce his running mate earlier than usual, just to prevent the inevitable Clinton-for-veep speculation from consuming the entire summer, and from further dividing the party when he finally gets around to rejecting what many pundits (and Hillary supporters) will myopically see as the "obvious" choice.

Before the "healing" can truly begin, the last shot must be fired, and that shot will be Obama's choice of a vice presidential running mate who isn't named Hillary Rodham Clinton.

*P.S. My statement that "before bittergate, I thought it was possible" is seemingly contradicted by my January 22 comment that "If it's an Obama-Clinton ticket, I will eat my arm." :) However, there actually was a period in March or early April when I briefly flirted with the idea of a Obama-Clinton ticket being workable. Sort of like how I briefly flirted with the idea of voting for Nader in 2000. In both cases, I eventually realized that the idea was "wolf-face crazy...the kind of decision you make when you are drunk, and on cocaine, and on deadline, and on fire."

Comments

[JO]

I really don't understand why this is being called the "Dream Ticket". It should be called the "Nightmare on Elm St Ticket".

[yea]

with the new race baiting by the clinton campaign my prior comments talking about the "dream ticket" are now pretty much implausible. i really can't believe the clintons are taking this route at this point. unreal.

[Joe Mama]

I doubt Hillary would even want to be Obama's VP. She's already been in the WH for 8 years with Bill (where she was at least as influential as Gore, if not more so), and she'd be writing off her own candidacy for another 8 years, at which point her time will almost certainly have passed. At least if Obama loses to McCain, she can run again in 2012.

BILL Clinton for VP!

At least if Obama loses to McCain, she can run again in 2012.

Why wouldn't this still be true if Obama loses to McCain with Hillary as his running mate?

That said, I think you may well be right that Hillary doesn't want the #2 spot. But she surely wants to be offered it.

[Sean P]

Brendan: I think your assessment is right (especially regarding the way it would validate Hillary's attacks on Obama in the general), but there is ONE thing she can offer Obama that no other VP candidate can offer -- an immediate end to the campaign. This would allow Obama to spend the next few weeks consolidating his support within the party -- rather than nailing down delegate #2024 and/or #2291, so he can pivot to the center in September. An active Hillary campaign -- even one she is very unlikely to win -- stretches out the time he needs to spend to secure his support within the party, which will complicate a successful general election strategy.

Of course, all this depends on Hillary backing out no later than May 20. If he refuses to concede after then, he might has well vanquish her at the convention and be rid of her for good.

[eagleye]

And I don't want to see Obama pay off her campaign debt, either. That would be an incredible slap in the face to all the $20 contributors that helped Obama win. She and Bill have over $100 million in assets. They can pay their own damn debt.

[Angrier and Angrier]

The "campaign debt" is owed to the Clintons themselves. Hillary loaned her campaign $11 million. Any money from Obama's coffers would go into the Clintons' bank account.

[Brendan Loy]

And Mark Penn's.

She can only repay her self $250,000 after her campaign is over:
http://www.slate.com/id/2190880/

Maybe she's staying in the race so that she can raise more money to repay herself...

[Andrew]

The Clintons will make another $11 million within a few years, so HRC will be just fine if her campaign can't repay her loans.

While I agree that an Obama-HRC ticket is far from plausible, I think you overstate the degree to which intra-party campaign animosity is at the root of the dealbreaker. All those remarks HRC made about Obama? She'll about-face real quick and the old soundbytes will play on the news for a few weeks and then disappear by Labor Day. This wouldn't be the first time two candidates were at each other's throats in the primary and then became best buds during the general election battle.

[Lauren]

I didn't comment on this Tuesday night (my cnn rant was crazy as it was) but some of the talking heads were commenting that two people very close to HRC were saying that she wanted the VP. She would twist the arm of the DNC to give it to her. Now granted this was at like 2am and Blitzer was all "will win, will win" but I found it interesting nonetheless. I think the "force it on the DNC" language has been dropped but the feeling on Tues night was that HRC felt that the DNC owed her something...

And you know Bayh is absolutely dying over losing his one chance. He's been waiting for that moment for years and blew it. Now he'll always be a senator from Indiana.