Why Hillary Clinton Won the VP Game

Hillary Clinton speaking to a large crowd of admirers in Pennsylvania...


I suppose Hillary Clinton would have taken the job as vice-president had Barack Obama been confident enough of himself to put her on the ticket without fear of being eclipsed. But I’m also sure that Hillary expected the Obamites would reject her offer. Both the candidates were in a fix, so to speak. Frozen in the headlights of “party unity.” Unity is a heady concept in the Jackass party, a holy grail to be fervently sought and desired, but never to be found. To Obamites, unity doesn’t mean supporting your country in time of war; it means getting your vote in November.

I don’t want Hillary to be Obama’s vice-president and I don’t think Hillary wanted the job anyway. There is a dualism in Hillary Clinton’s publicly announced interest in the ticket. Think about it. Could Hillary Clinton be petulant and say outright that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with the Obama campaign? That would be political suicide, especially so when the ongoing wrangle of a “dialogue” was about how spiteful and venal the Clinton campaign was in competing against Obama. Hillary and the Clintons were vilified; it was the old medieval incubus-succubus thing. The green-eyed evil and cunning female devil threatening to corrupt all the goodness and nobility offered by Messiah Obama. Consider the media reaction if Hillary Clinton outright spurned the holy grail of unity and said she didn’t want to have anything to do with Obama. Consider Hillary’s political future in the Democratic party. No, she had to humble herself and say she’d be willing to accept the number two position on the ticket, beneath a candidate who is, in most ways, an inferior. The second part of the dualism is that, were the party to pressure Obama into accepting Hillary on the ticket, Hillary would “make do” with the job. Frankly, Hillary Clinton would be a huge positive for the ticket, legitimizing it. Sure, the Republican Clinton-haters would rally against her. In a national campaign and within the current context, this would be one of the biggest draws of the ticket. But now all you get is Obama, little known, skin-deep, and full of holes.

Fact is, Hillary Clinton is one of the toughest competitors America has ever seen. The mainstream media won’t be able to shrink her back into a small box and ship her back to Arkansas (or Chattauqua). If she’s not as big as Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, or Jone of Arc, she’s at least as big as Evita Peron, Golda Meir, or Helen Thatcher.

She is sure to play a larger historical role now in America's political history.