Hillary Would Have Made a Terrific Vice President, Bill Notwithstanding

In his spicy, tantalizing, tell-all inside the belly of the Obama campaign book, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe says that Obama toyed with picking Hillary Clinton as his running mate and then junked it because hubby Bill posed too many complications. In less polite terms, the thinking among Team Obama was that Bill would have meddled, bossed, shoved his weight around, and been an insufferable know-it-all wise guy on policy issues. Obama would have had to waste time fending him off, and that would have made governing a living nightmare for him. This is all after-the-fact speculation, second guessing, and flat out Bill loathing.

It's true that Bill passionately and tirelessly backed Hillary's campaign, and he should have. This wasn't just a case of husbandly pride or guilt: millions thought and still think that she was the savviest, most experienced, knowledgeable, best prepared, and toughest of all the 2008 presidential candidates. It's also true that at times Bill's passion and exuberance for her got him in hot water when he took a couple of intemperate swipes at Obama. Much of the media and the professional Hillary loathers giddily jumped all over him for them, and wildly blew them out of proportion. There is, though, absolutely no proof that Bill would have been an unbearable obstructionist in the Obama Administration if Hillary were Vice President.

The proof is in Hillary's campaign. She ran it, Bill didn't. She made the crucial decisions, Bill didn't. She raised the money, Bill didn't. She framed, shaped and articulated all key policy campaign issues, Bill didn't. She did the debates, gave the speeches and interviews, and organized the troops, Bill didn't.

The minute she threw in the towel on her campaign she unhesitatingly endorsed Obama, campaigned for him, and repeatedly bombarded her supporters with emails and exhorted them in speeches to back Obama. Bill did the same.

Nearly a year after the campaign, a mid-October Gallup survey still showed her as far more popular than Obama. This has far more to do with her political savvy, grace and comportment than the fact that she's not a sitting president without the burdens, pressures, and hatred that go with the office. As VP, Hillary would have brought the same qualities to Team Obama that she brought to the campaign. That is expertise on health care reform, civil rights and liberties, campaign finance and immigration reform, and her special area of expertise on foreign policy. She would have been a role model and inspiration for millions of women young and old. She would have proven that women can hold a top political power spot that requires providing valuable policy guidance and expertise on tough domestic and foreign policy issues. She would have been a priceless go-between for Obama to Congress in the hard battles he faces to get his agenda passed.

Obama knew this about Hillary. That´s why he shocked his advisors by seriously considering making her his running mate. The two would have been an unbeatable ticket. He desperately needed her foreign policy expertise to deal with the hot button issues of Iran and North Korea's nukes, improving relations with Venezuela and Cuba, keeping Russia and China at bay, negotiating settlements in the Middle East conflict, and dealing with two flawed and failed wars. He also needed to neutralize her as the only Democrat who still posed any real threat to his 2012 reelection bid. Obama wasted no time in tapping her to head the State Department.

After the Gallup survey that showed she far outshone Obama with the general public, Clinton again proved her iron loyalty to Obama and the Democratic Party by quickly scotching any talk about running for president in 2012. This wasn't Bill talking. This was Hillary talking. Obama's initial instincts to consider her for Vice President were right. Hillary would have made a terrific Vice President--Bill notwithstanding.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January, 2010.

 

Comments

[DinkSinger]

"She raised the money, Bill didn't."

Bill was heavily involved in fundraising for the campaign. For example he was there to introduce her at all of the large fundraising events early in the campaign. Dozens of email appeals went out to hundreds of thousands of contributors over Bill's name. And don't forget 6% of all the money she spent in the campaign was Bill's money (she didn't save up $13 million on a Senator's salary). In the end, it was the Obama campaign that raised the money to get Hillary's campaign out of debt.

[Wonderwheel]

Earl, put this column on the short list where you are 100% wrong. LOL, I mean I totally disagree with you.
I don't buy that Bill was the problem. It was and is Hillary's character, not Bill's, that make her a poor choice for VP.

[mutron]

You lost me when you said, "He desperately needed her foreign policy expertise ...."

[Chubbster]

Yes but....lets orient to facts and reality.

[StanAccrington]

She lost. Get over it. Democrats overwhelmingly preferred Obama - he wasn't tainted by a "yes" vote for the stupid attack on Iraq.

[Alessandro Machi]

this is the all time dumbest "reasoning" given by obama supporters. Without Al Gore's yes vote during the first war on Iraq, there would have been no war. Yet you war vote mongers LOVE Al Gore.

It is the biggest hypocrisy of them all. It wasn't HIllary Clinton's war, it was George Bush's war.

[Decipherer]

When will the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" talk about Hillary Clinton stop already? With the massive amount of work that needs to be done to turn this country around, domestically and internationally, why are we wasting a nanosecond wallowing in all this?

Hillary Clinton ran a lousy, nasty, disorganized campaign built around the "inevitability" of her nomination, and other than having done a decent job as a U.S. Senator, her record viewed outside the whole "Clinton" brand is not especially inspiring, especially when you look carefully at the 1993 health care debacle that was her responsibility.

Nevertheless, she gets high marks for doing a very good job as Secretary of State, far better than her predecessor (not saying much), and all's well. Why stir some pot that needs no stirring?

Let's move on, please.

[Alessandro Machi]

Liar Liar. Your drink of Kool aid hasn't worn off yet.

[Steph77]

Decipherer- I am a progressive who is continually frustrated by progressives like you.

You blame Hillary for the health care "debacle", as you called it?

Let me help you understand the facts.

Hillary put together a team of people who actually cared about healthcare. She wasn't making back room deals with BigPharma. She didn't have 5,000 lobbyists and 400 congressman and their egos in the room. She didn't want to compromise. And with her team, she put an excellent plan and we would have all been better off had Congress the courage to pass it.

What she did was the most progressive, anti-establishment, idealist, and probably naive thing that has ever happened in Washington. But she failed by being a true progressive and trying to buck the system. She failed by being EXACTLY the kind of leader progressives SAY they want.

If progressives were smart, they would praise what she did. They would praise that kind of leadership, even when it fails. But they were too self righteous to acknowledge that they couldn't get what they wanted because too many other Americans just didn't agree with them.

And it is because of those progressives that we may never see that kind of leadership again- certainly not from Obama, who won't even just take a stand on the public option.

Who could blame him?Why would ANYONE ever want to stand up again after witnessing the way Hillary was treated?

[AnnfromCA]

The good news is women aren't in need of a role model. We KNOW she would have been a fine president.

[RepugsOut08]

As I watched NY Rep. Weiner on Rachel Maddow's show last Thursday, practically begging President Obama to support his own health care reform bill, I couldn't help wondering if we voters made a mistake in choosing Obama over Hillary?
I was turned off by Hillary's campaign attacks on Obama, but maybe she was displaying the kind of toughness we really needed to fight the Repubs and the health insurance industry.
I guess we'll never know, but it's for sure at this moment in time, that Obama is astonishingly dissappointing on health care reform. Just astonishingly dissappointing.

[Charmed]

RequgsOut08....oh yeah, I can totally see your point. Hillary did such a wonderful job getting healthcare passed back in the "93 that we really needed her to do it again.

[RepugsOut08]

I never said Hillary is the answer. I said we'll never know, but unless Obama snaps out of his trance on the issue of health care reform, he is going to doom, both the reform, and the 2010 and 2012 elections.
He has admitted himself that health care reform is his make-or-break issue. The bill, as it stands now, is a joke, and it's only going to get even more watered down and insurance company friendly as it progresses without his leadership.
Where is Obama's leadership on his own reform bill? NY Rep. Weiner wanted to know last week. So did Kucinich and many other progressives in Congress. The clock is ticking.........

[justobserve]

If Obama is president, Bill or no Bill, Hillary shouldn't be anywhere near the second spot to replace him! That is deadly dangerous!

[Siobhan11]

Oh Please !!!

[waitforme]

I agree that Clinton would have made a better VP than SoS. It makes little sense that she was chiosen as the top diplomat (!?) after the world heard her threaten to 'obliterate Iran' and her lies about being under sniper fire when she was not.

Her patronizing, authoritarian tone when she speaks to world leaders (Pakistan, Israel, Palestine) can -- and has - only evoke the digging in of one's heels and a world backlash. She has never learned to divest herself of her father's bullying style and find a respectful tone which nonetheless carries authority (not authoritarianism, authority) and mutual respect. There are excellent, effective woman leaders in the world she could model herself after to great effectiveness: Mary Robinson of Ireland, Arundati Roy (on nuclear proliferation), the president of Chile, Bachelet.

As to Earl Hutchinson's belief in her 'grace' (or indeed in her 'well-run campaign'), I didn 't and don't see it.

[justobserve]

Strongly agree with your last sentence. She divided the Democrats to the last minute thinking only of her future. As for a "well-run" campaign, the loss of the well-known and most powerful political couple to an unkown candidate said it all!

[placpje]

It wasn't her doing the dividing .... it was the Clinton-haters and the worshipers.

[Alessandro Machi]

Quit bashing Hillary Clinton and just acknowledge that the media DID NOT do their job in vetting Barack Obama. And I'm not talking about Wright. I'm talking about real stuff, like favoring finishing his book in Bali while his mom was dying of cancer in Hawaii, but then politicizing his mother's death for gain throughout the 2008 campaign. These are real character issues that NEEDED to be addressed by the media, and they were not.

[party-of-one]

Waitforme said it very well: "Her patronizing, authoritarian tone when she speaks to world leaders (Pakistan, Israel, Palestine). "

[placpje]

Two Clinton-haters believing the same fairytale .... what a surprise.

[Alessandro Machi]

Yeah, lets respect men who sit in air conditioned studios and make fun of Hillary Clinton instead.

[SgtLucifer]

Hillary would have made a better president (of course without the burden of the "Triangulating Sleak Willie). Sleak Willie brought on economic good times, but he did little to move the country forward structurally.

From what I am witnessing about Obama, not much is going to change either. The wealthy and the Republican mentality (i.e., slave capitalism) about how the country should function is going to remain in place. We'll continue to work long hours with hardly any vacation time for peanuts. Jobs are going to continue to go overseas, and Republican repressive agenda will overshadow us all.

Hillary would have been the president to shift the country more the other way without suffering the bellowing of the right-wing wingnuts. I regret her decision to junk her presidential ambitions. I hope it is a temporary deference to a weak president.

[Charmed]

She didn't junk her presidential ambitions...she LOST....

[party-of-one]

I cannot figure out if this blog is praising Hillary or defending Bill from blame for her failed campaign? Earl Afari Hchinson says "The proof is in Hillary's campaign. She ran it, Bill didn't. She made the crucial decisions,...She raised the money...She framed, shaped and articulated all key policy campaign issues...She did the debates, gave the speeches and interviews, and organized the troops."

But Hillary's campaign was a mess. Back bighting staff, message fog, Rove-style increasingly desperate ktichen-sink tactics, failed primary-caucus strategy, major conflicts of interest, lack of financial controls leading to deep debt, even with a mega-million bail out in personl funds, and a national campaign finance chair recently indicted (on non-campaign matters ) on financail fraud. It is very difficult to see how Hillary's leadership of her campaign shows her qualification for leadership of the nation and the world.

I guess Earl is just helping Bill deflect the blame.

[ekrub]

The peace and prosperity of the Clinton years were the best of my adult life. Any involvement they have in the Obama administration only increases my confidence.

[SgtLucifer]

"The peace and prosperity of the Clinton years were the best of my adult life"
- - You are not alone. I've heard the same from many. The 8 years of WBush was literally a nightmare.

[NikkiT]

ekrub, I totally agree. Best years of my working life were those when Bill Clinton was in charge. Seems like this administration to learn a thing or two from the Big Dawg. Without jobs, the economic "recovery" means nothing. If Obama really was "worried" about Bill Clinton - then it doesn't say much for his leadership.

[emily]

It's nice to have both Biden and H. Clinton in the cabinet.

They are both doing great jobs. LOVE Biden on Afghanistan, for example.

[party-of-one]

we must hope that Biden's views on Afghanistan persuade the President, and not Hillary's ill-informed advocacy for US escalation.

[placpje]

Either way, .... he's "the decider" with the "great judgment". But didn't he always promise to escalate the war in Afghanistan? Heeeeeey, .....he finally IS making good on one of his campaign promises!

Guess that's the problem when you start having to MAKE decisions, rather than just talk about it.

[jugganaut]

The important thing is that Obama at least has her playing a critical role in his administration.

She's already shone herself to be a far more capable SOS than that yes-woman do-nothing Condoleeza Rice.

[party-of-one]

Rice? that is your best standard of comparison?

[placpje]

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