Hillary for Veep

Hillary for Veep

If it is the PEOPLE who should decide the Democratic Presidential nominee, should it not ALSO be the PEOPLE who decide the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee ????

If it is the PEOPLE who should decide, then very clearly and beyond any dispute the Vice Presidential nominee MUST be she who received almost 50% of all primary votes cast and who carried most of those "must win" states that the Democratic ticket MUST carry in order to win in November.

That means that HILLARY is the ONLY possible Vice Presidential nominee . She is also the STRONGEST, SMARTEST, BEST PREPARED, and the MOST DETERMINED. (That's right, "ambition" is not a dirty word; it's an essential quality in anyone who is actually going to get anything done.).

(I'd rather it were the other way around, of course : she as Pres and he as Veep, but it's too late for that.)

I know that Obama can NOT win without the votes of Hillary's 18 million supporters, and I doubt that he can win without Hillary as his Veep.

How will Hillary's 18 million voters vote ?

Of Hillary's 18 million supporters, most should realize that between her position on issues and Obama's position there is only a thumb's width of difference , but between there positions and McCain's there is an ocean's width of difference. Of Hillary's feminist supporters, most should realize that McCain's views are the antithesis of gender equalitarian and that he is totally opposed to freedom of choice in reproductive issues. So of Hillary's 18 million, one can hope that at least 3/4 will vote for Obama, no matter how badly dissappointed they may be. But I know plenty of women who have said that without Hillary on the ticket they will vote for McCain instead. I think that's a bad bad choice for any self-respecting woman, but I also know that some of them really mean it. They are that pissed off at seeing a brilliant and immensely competent woman passed over.

Now it's likely to be a close race at best. So can Obama really spare 3 or 4 million of Hillary's supporters who will at best stay home or vote for Hillary as a write in or at worst vote for McCain ???

So I think that while Obama might squeak through on his own, he has a tremendously better chance to be elected if he has Hillary at his side as Veep. OK, maybe they don't like each other much (though I think they do respect each other, which is really more important). Welll it would not be the first time that a winning ticket had a President and Veep who didn't like each other. John F Kennedy didn't like Lyndon Johnson but recognized he needed Johnson to bring in some big electoral vote states ; JFK would not have won without Johnson. Johnson did not like or respect Kennedy, but he knew that a sitting Vice President has a big advantage to become President later on.

For any great idea to become a reality or to be passed into legislation , it takes both Inspiration and Perspiration. It's rare for the same person to be good at both.

For the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Martin Luther King was the great Inspiration orator, but it was that old horse trader, Lyndon Johnson who did the Persiration of lining up the votes to get the thing passed. (If he'd had the good sense to back away from the Vietnam War he would probably have gone down in history as a great President.)

Now Barack Obama is very good on Inspiration, but he is not proven at Perspiration. Hillary is superb at Perspiration. She is the detailed thinker who turns an idea into a concrete plan. She is the fighter who doesn't give up. She is the horse trader who can get the votes together, including votes from accross party lines.

Inspiration is romantic, but Perspiration gets the job done. We need both.

• She'll Always Be My Nominee, a song for Hillary.