OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: Can Democrats Unite Behind Obama After Bruising Primary Campaign with Clinton?

"It's not a job that she's seeking and it's not a job that she's campaigning for," her campaign communications director, Howard Wolfson, said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "But she has made it clear, during the campaign and now, that she will do whatever she can and whatever she is asked."

"I'm not expecting it, don't spend a lot of time thinking about it," Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia said on "Fox News Sunday." "Of course, it would be difficult for anybody in those circumstances to say no."

However, in the wake of Andrews' disclosure of racially-motivated tactics against Obama by the Clinton camp, an Obama-Clinton ticket appears highly unlikely -- and, indeed, undesirable -- to this blogger. And I'm not alone.

Former President Jimmy Carter urged Obama to "Just say no" to Clinton, saying in an interview published Sunday in the British newspaper The Guardian that such a pairing “would be the worst mistake that could be made.”

Carter, who announced his support for Obama on Tuesday, told the newspaper's Weekend magazine that Obama and Clinton together “would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates.”

In a bluntly-worded assessment, Carter cited Clinton’s almost 50 percent negative ratings in national opinion polls and the many questions and biases -- racial ones in particular -- that Obama faces.

“If you take that 50 percent who just don’t want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don’t think Obama is white enough or old enough or experienced enough or because he’s got a middle name that sounds Arab, you could have the worst of both worlds,” Carter said.

The former president said he also would have opposed a Clinton-Obama ticket with Clinton at the top.

Don't Forget the Bill Clinton Factor

Then there's the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about, but cannot ignore: another former president by the name of Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton had so deeply alienated African-American voters in January with his sharp attacks on Obama that the former president -- once so popular among blacks he was dubbed the "first black president" by author Toni Morrison -- caused a near-total desertion of his wife by blacks, who voted Obama over Clinton by margins as high as nine to one.

And in the ultimate slap in the face, Morrison endorsed Obama rather than the former first lady.

Reviled by conservatives -- and ultimately impeached in 1999 -- for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, Bill Clinton became embroiled in new controversy only hours before the polls opened in the final primaries last Tuesday in Montana and South Dakota when Vanity Fair magazine published allegations that the former president was in a new extramarital affair.

In its July issue, the magazine alleges that Clinton is involved with actress Gina Gershon -- who hotly denied the story and demanded the magazine publish a retraction. The magazine refused, with a spokeswoman saying that, "We don't believe any correction is warranted."

The article, a profile by former New York Times reporter Todd Purdum of the post-White House Clinton, mentioned "dinner-party gossip" that the former president had strayed from his wife since his heart surgery in 2004, and it claimed he had been "visiting" Gershon in California.

Some Clinton Supporters Vow They Won't Support Obama

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