One of the very few truly wise cable-babblers said a while back that the loser of the Democratic nomination will determine the winner in November. Meaning, of course, that the way the loser exits and determines to come together—if at all—will make or break the winner’s candidacy.
Now that it’s all over but the final counting—I write this on the eve of the Montana and South Dakota primaries—it’s clear that Barack Obama has more or less stumbled past the finish line first. Enough super-delegates will rapidly declare for him to put him well over the top—as I, among others, predicted weeks ago.
Back on March 31 I wrote in this space:
“Sometime in June or even earlier, the party ‘elders’ such as Al Gore, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and even Chairman Howard Dean have a heart-to-heart with the remaining 130 superdelegates…So most of the remaining supers—at least 100 of them—go with Obama….”
And, yes, even farther back, on Feb 14, I noted: “They will likely find some way to seat the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations, as long as it doesn’t upset the balance of votes for Obama.”
But the issue is not who had it right and when. It is when and how Hillary Clinton makes her exit and what she does about bringing her sometimes frustrated, angry and alienated constituency back to the party tent.
She and her top spokespersons continue to rattle their sabers—threatening to carry their issue to the convention itself—leading to almost certain electoral destruction in November.
It seems unlikely in the long run she will do so—she still wants a future in the party. It is quite possible that she is keeping her campaign alive for technical financial reasons:
She has loaned it more than $11 million but campaign finance laws do not permit a “closed” campaign to repay such a loan without paying heavy taxes. By keeping the campaign alive, she will probably get much of this back from Obama, either from his existing funds or through joint fund-raising efforts.
She will bargain for something big as well: Will it be the vice presidency or perhaps a special cabinet position to take another stab at getting a health care plan right this time?
The vice presidency makes all kind of sense for the coming election. The problem here, as certain other wise cable-babblers point out, will be in the actual governing should they win.
Imagine Hillary and her husband, the triangulator-in-chief, setting up shop on their own in the Veep’s HQ.
This is, to say the least, a very assertive couple not known for being team players unless it’s their own team. The male half could not even be kept under control by his wife or her campaign, as we saw week after week during the primaries.
My guess is Obama will give them something big and juicy short of the vice-presidency. Something to make her feel very important and help him restore his shrinking “legacy.”
As for Obama, he has learned to take a battering. Perhaps even more from his friends than from his enemies. He’ll need that skill doubled and tripled in the months ahead, once he acquires his new friends.
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Don Rose, an iconic strategist for liberal and progressive candidates in both Democratic and Republican parties, is a regular political columnist for The Chicago Daily Observer.