Dear Commons Community,
With the Republicans thick into their presidential nominee race with never-ending debates and the New Hampshire primary set for tomorrow, there has been little discussion of the Democratic ticket. It has been a foregone conclusion that the ticket will be Obama/Biden even though there have been calls for Hillary Clinton to seek the presidential nomination. In today’s New York Times, Bill Keller has a column on an Obama/Clinton ticket:
“The proposal to draft her [Clinton] in place of President Obama is preposterous. It exaggerates his vulnerability and discounts Hillary’s loyalty. But the idea that she should replace Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate in 2012 is something else. It has been kicking around on the blogs for more than a year without getting any traction, mainly because it has been authoritatively, emphatically dismissed by Hillary, Biden and Team Obama….It’s time to take it seriously”.
Furthermore,
“the arguments in favor are…One: it does more to guarantee Obama’s re-election than anything else the Democrats can do. Two: it improves the chances that, come next January, he will not be a lame duck with a gridlocked Congress but a rejuvenated president with a mandate and a Congress that may be a little less forbidding. Three: it makes Hillary the party’s heir apparent in 2016. .She would bring to this year’s campaign a missing warmth and some of the voltage that has dissipated as Obama moved from campaigning to governing. What excites is not just the prospect of having a woman a heartbeat — and four years — away from the presidency, although she certainly embodies the aspirations of many women. It’s the possibility that the first woman at the top would have qualifications so manifest that her first-ness was a secondary consideration.”
I vote YES!
Tony