Hillary on the Bottom?

Back in March, after Hillary's win in Ohio and Texas (although Obama took more delegates in the latter), I wrote:

"The notion of Obama sharing a ticket with Hillary -- Hillary on top, wording her campaign people always avoid because of Bill Clinton's history -- has a precedent: LBJ accepting the number two spot on JFK's 1960 ticket, after Johnson finally realized, deeply hurt and angered, that the nomination was going to the untested upstart with the good hair."

It hard to imagine then that we'd be speculating two months later about whether Obama would offer and Hillary would accept the "warm bucket of piss" job of the vice presidency.

While writing my unauthorized biography of Katharine Graham -- the Washington Post owner who became famous for her role in printing the Pentagon Papers and allowing her reporters to unravel Watergate -- I looked at the role that Kay's \ brilliant but mentally ill husband, Phil Graham, then the Washington Post's publisher, played in persuading Kennedy at the democrats' convention in Los Angeles to offer the second spot to Johnson. I also looked at Phil's manic but brilliant cajoling of LBJ into accepting what Johnson considered a demeaning offer.

JFK and LBJ, who could not have been more different -- except in their ambition for the Oval Office in 1960 - detested each other.

Just a day before Kennedy captured the nomination, Johnson's people were spreading rumors that Kennedy's father had been pro-Nazi and that Kennedy had Addison's disease. Phil would later write that "A Negro couple from his ranch were in the [hotel] room" while Phil and LBJ had lunch that day. Phil was flabbergasted by Johnson's desire to continue fighting for the top spot. An untreated manic-depressive, sleepless for a week at that point, Phil decided that Johnson, whom some think shared the same illness, needed a nap. '.... the three of us converged upon him, disrobed him, pajamaed him and got him in bed.'

JFK snagged the nomination, Phil rushed to Kennedy's suite at the Biltmore and persuaded him to take Johnson: 'You pick Johnson for vice president, take Texas, and win. Or you don't take Johnson, and you lose.' The more difficult task for Phil was persuading Johnson to accept the offer, when his hero, fellow Texan and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, was urging him to keep his position as Senate majority leader; lecturing him that he'd be crazy to trade that in for the 'pitcher of warm piss,' as former vice president (to FDR) John Nance Garner, whom Johnson also called for advice, described it.

Bobby Kennedy, who loathed Johnson with a ferocity even greater than his older brother's, had a different goal. He ran over to LBJ's hotel suite to urge him not to take the vice presidency. LBJ returned Bobby's enmity, referring to him as "that little shit-ass." Phil Graham maneuvered to keep Bobby away from Johnson, forcing the younger Kennedy to meet instead with Rayburn. Bobby eventually met with Johnson and urged him to turn down the offer that JFK had already made and instead to become head of the Democratic National Committee. (One can only wonder what the younger Kennedy was thinking.)

My sources told me that John Kennedy knew he had to make the offer but was so turned off by Johnson that he desperately wanted Johnson to decline, allowing JFK to publicly claim credit for having asked and to win points with Texans, southerners and older voters. Instead LBJ accepted, they carried Texas and the election. (Although shenanigans engineered by Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley in Cook County also helped.)

For Barack Obama, the best scenario might be to offer the vice presidency to Hillary Clinton and pray that she declines, thereby appeasing Hillary's key constituencies, including that of older women. Hillary returns to the Senate, angles to become majority leader, and, after a rousing reception for her and Bill at the democrats' convention in August -- the Clintons manage to steal the spotlight and resurrect their reputations -- Hillary and Bill campaign for Obama betting that he can't win. Soon after the November election she lays the groundwork for her run in 2012. Watch for her to visit Iowa early in what she likely believes and even hopes will be a John McCain one-term presidency.

When I was writing my just-published book about Bill Clinton's post presidency, Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House, I interviewed a prominent businessman and supporter of Bill Clinton's philanthropic work who told me that the former president told him in the summer of 2006 that Hillary would not run for the nomination in 2008 because she can't win. Bill explained that women don't like Hillary and won't vote for her. He was wrong about that -- women were her most enthusiastic constituency -- but he was right in the larger sense.

Hillary "the inevitable" wasn't listening to Bill back then; she was listening to her own "Hillaryland" advisers and keeping Bill and his people at bay.

Bill Clinton told this man, whom I interviewed shortly after his conversation with the former president, that Hillary would stay in the senate and would make a wonderful majority leader.

Just where the current majority leader, Harry Reid, fits into all of this is open for debate, but one thing is certain, the senator from Nevada should watch his back.

Comments

[wizened]

Hillary appeals only to her followers. Most of them will support the Democratic cantidate. Most other people find her obnoxious. her negatives with independents and uncommitted Democrats are unprecedented for a serious cantidate. To put her on a ticket with Obama would be suicide for Obama. And if he does it and is elected, he better hire someone to taste his food!

[standard]

For Obama to put Hillary on the bottom of the ticket would be for him to scrape the bottom of the barrel and endanger his administration's integrity in both senses: its moral rectitude and its cohesiveness.

What her core (over-50 white female) supporters appear to want is to advance the political standing of women, not necessarily Hillary. They seem not to notice the "voracious guile" (as Richard Belzer put it) that's characterized her campaign and see only a woman with a shot at high office.

If Obama put any woman on the ticket--or promised that half his cabinet will be women--Hillary would still get credit as a pioneer, even if she won't enjoy the surprise going-away party in her honor. Doing that would save President-elect Obama from having to deal the Clintons every day for years.

Neither LBJ nor his wife became a loose cannon on deck, but the Clintons are beyond anyone's control. (Ego-centric multimillionaires in general aren't known for their loyalty and obedience.)

Putting Hillary on the ticket would cost Obama his credibility, impair his electibility and compromise his potential effectiveness. It would be a very bad move for almost everyone but the Clintons and John McCain.

[DennyCrane]

Hillary should not be the VP. In fact, after the kind of campaign she's run, all but endorsing McCain, trying to split the party, and offending its most loyal supporters, she should be booted from the party altogether. I know that won't happen, but she shouldn't get any consolation prize either. Kerry got nothing after his loss. As inept as Harry Reid is, Hillary shouldn't be the one to take over for him. What the party needs is someone with a spine. Russ Feingold would be my first choice. Anyone who voted for the war should be disqualified. And no way should Hillary be appointed to The Supreme Court. They stay on the court for life. We need someone there we can trust and that ain't Hillary.

[FlowerGirl]

Obama cannot begin his campaign to clean up politics by selling out to Hillary. She began her caqmpaign by selling out to Murdoch. She extended it by selling ot to Scaife. She ended it with a blataqnt race baiting. She got more lobbyist funds than any candidate in either party. That is not compatible with cleaning up Washington.
She lies constantly, and occasionally seems delusional. (Snipers, anyone?) Can one restore faith in government by teaming up with that?
And Hillary does not deserve any high appointment for the same reasons, and onne other. In addition to not being ethical (as being fired from the Waterrgate for lying and unethical conduct), she is simply not as smart as her fans claim. Otherwise why was she at the bottom of her law class, and why did she fail the DC bar exam? (She later passed the bar in Arkansas where 85% of the examinees passed.)
This isn't some soap opera being carried on here. It is serious life-or-death business: running our government, bringing about a more peaceful and safer world, annd making our country more just.

[slemay]

Obama will offer the vice presidential candidacy to Edwards. He will placate Hillary by offering to appoint her to the Supreme Court for the first available opeing.

[newshawk14]

Do you really want someone who graduated near the bottom of their class, and whose
law career, could only be described as undistinguished, on the Supreme Court? I
would like to see a woman appointed at the next opening, but let's get someone that's
very distinguished. There is a lot of damage to undo from republican appointments.

[Paralogos]

Personal animosities aside, Johnson added electoral balance to the Democratic ticket in 1960. An older, established Southerner to balance the young, Catholic, New Englander. Hillary Clinton offers no such balance to an Obama ticket. She, like he, is a midwesterner, however she tries to drawl. Her influence in the Senate is about the same as his - she's been there a couple of years longer, but he's actually passed more legislation with his name on it. What constituencies can she deliver to Obama? She's positioned herself lately as the least objectionable Democratic candidate for those who can't abide a black man in the Oval Office, but only because she was the ONLY alternative. That doesn't mean that those folks are going to vote for Obama because Hillary will be VP. There is apparently a class of older, white, female voter who might be convinced by an Obama/Hillary ticket to vote Democratic when they would otherwise stay home or vote McCain, but I frankly don't think they're very numerous, and I can't think of a state where they would make the difference between a McCain and an Obama win. What states can Clinton "deliver" as VP?

Obama wants to shake things up, so maybe he won't go with the conventional wisdom, but the conventional wisdom would be that he needs a respected older white man from the South or West as his running mate, either a many-term senator or governer.

[rbloom]

There has been a lot of discussion about the VP slot in a vacuum. I'd like to see some polling numbers, myself.
But let's not let the absence of hard data get in the way of the fun:
My gut feeling is that putting a white guy on the ticket isn't going to make a damn bit of difference to the tolerance-challenged white folks out there. Appalachia is hardly going to swoon over Joe Biden or Chris Dodd.
On the other hand, Obama was very weak among Hispanics in the primaries and the word is out that McCain is targeting those voters -- witness his mention of moderate immigration reform (a guest worker program) in his I-have-a-delusional-fantasy speech yesterday.
So I'm thinking Gov. Richardson. I think he would energize the Hispanic vote and bring them out in large numbers for Obama. This could move NM and maybe FL into the blue and also bring CO, NV, TX and maybe even AZ into play.
Richardson also adds experience to the ticket. And most of those who would be put off by his ethnicity are already a lost cause.
And hey, I like his sense of humor.
And as I've said elsewhere, I'm an Obama supporter who has no problem with Sen. Clinton on the ticket. We're all Democrats on this bus. Let's keep our eyes on November, not April.

[Dap]

Hillary Clinton *DID NOT* win Texas !

[08timefortruth]

Hillary on the bottom? Not a pleasant visualization no matter what the circumstances.

[KillTheMessenger]

Just where do these ideas originate that Senator Obama would ever offer ANY position to Senator Clinton? She is the antithesis of his campaign and is moving away from the center of the Democratic party at nearly the speed of light. Of course none of the current event has anything to do with history. The comparison of Senator Obama with JFK is ridiculous. The rest of this tale is about as fantastic as a Perry Rhodan novel.

[IslandGyal]

No, No, NO, NO! No Hillary Clinton on any freakin' ticket, bottom or otherwise.

[newshawk14]

Acquaintances of mine, who are a little to the right of Attila the Hun, are planning on voting for
Obama, virtually every republican moderate I know, is planning on voting for Obama. Throw
in Hillary and those votes disappear, as well as a good number of independent voters. Some
of the Hillary supporters might stay home, and Obama gets a -1 vote, but if we capture some
of the republicans and independents, it's McCain -1 and Obame +1. I think Hillary will
discover the validity of this math, as her super delegates switch.

[JimR]

Exactly. Putting Hillary on the ticket is a very, very bad idea. Campaign suicide.

[Krikkit]

I have a better idea, since Hillary cannot add anything to an Obama ticket that isn't counterbalanced and then some by her albatross negatives, why not politely ask the lady to go away? And if that doesn't work, or if it seems that insisting that she go away might result in some form of nuclear option blackmail scenario, offering her a non-vp position in the administration, like Ambassador to Lithuania or something?

[WorkingClass]

It took me a long time to come around to supporting Obama. If he puts Clinton on the ticket I will know I was wrong and will vote for Nader or McKinney.

[Countess]

Obama would have to be insane to offer Hillary Clinton this position. He wants to move the country in a new direction not go backwards. Clinton is too much of a neocon and we know how their foreign policy has been a total failure.

[23000Days]

....and then Kennedy was killed...... in Texas.....under circumstances still questioned.......circumstances possibly involving Johnsons friends......Like CIA operative GHWB.


Sure! Hillary on the ticket sounds .....Great?

[Krikkit]

Agreed. It's a foolish choice, given the potential damage should she decide to accept the token offer. Don't these so-called experts know anything about risk assessment?

[IslandGyal]

I try to stay away from articulating this scenario that has been my thoughts all along. Even without her delusional ambitions to be president, there’s a 95% possibility that some racist will attempt, and if we are unfortunate, succeed in actually assassinating Barack. That will make her president. I would hate that. I say as supporters, we need to let Barack know, there’s no way we would accept that.