Tuesday, October 5, 2010
A Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton ticket in 2012? “It’s on the table,” says veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. Woodward told CNN’s John King Tuesday on John King USA, “Some of Hillary Clinton’s advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012.”
The scenario has Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton switching positions, a rumor floating around Washington DC for months now and seen by some political strategists as a savvy strategy to gin up excitement among what appears to be an uninterested Democratic base.
People close to Mr. Biden say he was never interested in vice president. His real calling was State, where he could draw on more than three decades of international bridge building. Ms. Clinton, if she becomes Mr. Obama’s Number Two in 2012, would be perfectly positioned for a presidential run of her own in 2016.
As Mr. Woodward says,
“President Obama needs some of the women, Latinos, retirees that she did so well with during the [2008] primaries and, so they switch jobs, not out of the question, and the other interesting question is, Hillary Clinton could run in her own right in 2016 and be younger than Ronald Reagan when he was elected president.”
Clinton will be 69 years old and three months in January, 2017. Ronald Reagan was just shy of his 70th birthday in January, 1980.
From the Left 
Obama needs a strong, black woman to kick him in the rear end from time to time, and I think Hillary hits the ticket perfectly. He’s lazy and needs to be loved. In Washington, this dynamic is a recipe for disaster and this helps explain his political misfortunes in a scant 20 months.
We won’t see DADT repealed as long as Barry is the president because he’s terrified of the military. But, if Hillary is elected, I feel confident DADT and DOMA will be gone in her first hundred days as president. So we will need to wait until 2017.
That ticket would be ideal. As for Hillary running in 2016, I have no problem with her age that year – after all, women tend to live longer than men anyway!
I’m open to the idea. Why not spend four years grooming her for the gig?
Obama needs a boost. There are a lot of Hillary fans out there who feel disenfranchised by the outcome of the 2008 Democratic primary. If he puts her on the ticket, these voters should return. Plus, as you point out, Obama needs a “strong, black woman” to knock that grin and arrogance off his face and force him to lead. If Hillary runs in 2016, well, I don’t know. What if Chelsea has a child by then? Maybe being a dotting grandmother will be more appealing to her?
It’s likely too late for Obama. Americans wanted him to focus on jobs but, he ignored them and focused on healthcare and Afghanistan. Read this.
AP-GfK Poll: Working-class whites shun Dems
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_ap_poll_working_class_whites
Desperate for jobs and cool toward President Barack Obama, working-class whites are flocking to Republicans, turning a group long wary of Democrats into an even bigger impediment to the party’s drive to keep control of Congress.
An Associated Press-GfK poll shows whites without four-year college degrees preferring GOP candidates by twice the margin of the last two elections, when Democrats made significant gains in the House and Senate.
The poll, conducted last month, found this group favoring GOP hopefuls 58 percent to 36 percent — a whopping 22 percentage-point gap.
I remember 2008 well. Obama was under pressure to put Hillary on the ticket but sources reported in the Washington Post and other media outlets blamed Michelle Obama for the Biden selection. She was even quoted as telling Barack, “Do you really want Bill running around the White House again?” If this is true, I Hillary would be VP today.
I commented on this on a previous blog entry.
Replacing Biden with Hillary is a ‘win-win.” Biden gets State and Hillary is one notch closer to becoming the first U.S. female president unless you count George W. Bush, who is about as feminine as we’ve seen in the Oval Office.
Bush was said to pluck his eye brows and wear face paint. My wife said he looked like a drag queen.
Hillary has the intellect to be president. She’s been so close to the halls of power as First Lady and then US Senator.
Why not Hillary Clinton in 2016?
One comment I want to make. I always said, I had no problem with Hillary Clinton — it’s her supporters who make me nervous. The rabid Hillbots have a religious frenzy about them and don’t serve her very well.
She needs to figure out how to calm them down.
Bob Woodward has a book to sell. He’s willing to say just about anything to get press coverage and help sell Obama’s Wars. Sorry but, I’m not buying it and I don’t want a return of the Clinton drama at a time when the country remains mired in a stubborn recession and we’re at war on two Islamic fronts. Hillary, should serve out her tenure as SoS and then retire with respect. Let’s turn the page, please.
I’m so damned tired of political dynasties.
Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush, and now Clinton. How is possible in a nation the size of the USA that there are only a half dozen families ready and able to run this country?
This makes no sense.
This makes a whole lot more sense than having Hillary challenge Obama for the nomination! If Obama/Hillary ticket wins in 2012, then she is well placed for 2016 … and even if Obama/Hillary loses, it would not hurt her chances much in 2016.
However, I think Biden is a bad choice for Secretary of State, he is too gaffe-prone for that job.
I think this is just a ruse to get the progressives supporting Obama.
Regardless of who is VP, Obama will still be president. He will still ignore DADT, DOMA, and ENDA. He will still capitulate to Republicans. He will still be a centrist, bipartisan president.
No Thanks.
I vote Green in the 2012 election.
Biden is a loose cannon, he too often engages the mouth before engaging the brain. I think he’d be a bad Sec of State choice. It’s a big effing deal, you know?
Besides the Clinton admin brought us DADT to begin with. Why would the Mrs. change her husband’s mandate?
I’d think Hillary would much prefer being the top dog, not the #2 to Obama.
Plus, even though Bush started the financial meltdown, people still blame Obama for it.
His admin has been *watered down*, lacking teeth or spine, the Dems can’t pull together to get things done.
The only reason to vote for dems now is because “it would be worse” than with tea party crazies, or the party of No, except for pandering to the rich.
Back to the same old routine of voting against the worst of the two evils.
Biden always reminded me of the nutty uncle every family has orbiting the Thanksgiving turkey.
He shows up once a year and calls African Americans the “N” word, Hispanics are relegated to wetbacks and gay people are f****ts. Everyone cringes and wonders what side of the family he comes from. Obama needs to give Old Joe the heave-ho and replace him with Hillary.
“Obama needs a strong, black woman to kick him in the rear end from time to time….”
FOFLMAO! Adirondacky, you noticed this too? 🙂
The white people who have turned away from the President are a smaller percentage overall than they were even in 2008, and they’re aging fast. That’s not much of a worry anymore.
As for this…. nah. Why should she? The top slot is hers if she actually wants it, and I’m 100% certain she’d be more willing to actually fight the Rushpubliscums than this President ever will be.
It has also long been rumored that her position on the rights of gay American citizens is considerably more enlightened than her husband’s. As she once said, she really isn’t a Tammy Wynette.
maybe if the obama administration actually DID something for the people they wouldnt have to resort to more media stunts to “gin up the base”
what a stupid country we are – willing to let side shows run the place.
i have no problem with hillary – but i dont think anything will be different if obama is in charge – he will still be a milquetoast scaredy cat, afraid of glenn beck and jim demint.
Dear Sir ,
Should Hillary have to wait until 2016? No . Why ?
Two American reporters have discovered and reported an odd “claim” (Ken Layne of Wonkette in Washington, DC and Jason Overdorf of Global Post — the latter after personally interviewing the author) it can well be considered a “scandal” unto itself.
See the two stories for yourself below:
Ken Layne of Wonkette: http://wonkette.com/416619/did-indian-writers-secret-book-create-entire-2008-election-and-barack-obama
Jason Overdorf of Global Post: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/101106/obamas-secret
This story might not be a “scandal” from the perspective of its Indian author, who has called the use of his book by Mr. Obama an “honor,” but it must surely be a scandal from American point of view, and particularly from the perspective of the American media, as the contents of the book appear to have been used by Obama without any authorization from the author.
Whether it is a mere hypothesis of the author or a fact, who would uncover the truth about it, if not the American press? The author has provided sufficient evidence upon his special website to start and pursue an investigation by the journalists. Please see the link:
http://www.firstladypresident.net/evidence.htm
The election might be an old story, but not the fact that a book by a foreign writer made a decisive impact on it through its use by one of the leading candidates. It is, in that respect, “breaking news” yet undiscovered by the American media. Are the American people not entitled to know the truth about it?
Bill Burchet
Dear Sir ,
Two American reporters have discovered and reported an odd “claim” (Ken Layne of Wonkette in Washington, DC and Jason Overdorf of Global Post — the latter after personally interviewing the author) it can well be considered a “scandal” unto itself.
See the two stories for yourself below:
Ken Layne of Wonkette: http://wonkette.com/416619/did-indian-writers-secret-book-create-entire-2008-election-and-barack-obama
Jason Overdorf of Global Post: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/101106/obamas-secret
This story might not be a “scandal” from the perspective of its Indian author, who has called the use of his book by Mr. Obama an “honor,” but it must surely be a scandal from American point of view, and particularly from the perspective of the American media, as the contents of the book appear to have been used by Obama without any authorization from the author.
Whether it is a mere hypothesis of the author or a fact, who would uncover the truth about it, if not the American press? The author has provided sufficient evidence upon his special website to start and pursue an investigation by the journalists. Please see the link:
http://www.firstladypresident.net/evidence.htm
The election might be an old story, but not the fact that a book by a foreign writer made a decisive impact on it through its use by one of the leading candidates. It is, in that respect, “breaking news” yet undiscovered by the American media. Are the American people not entitled to know the truth about it?
Bill Burchet