Maureen Dowd has some great one-liners in her day after the end of the democratic primary N.Y. Times column. (She's Still Here)
He thought a little thing like winning would stop her? Oh, Bambi. Whoever said that after denial comes acceptance hadn't met the Clintons.
If Hillary could not have an acceptance speech, she wasn't going to have acceptance.
"It's never going to end,"- sighed one Democrat who has been advising Hillary. "We're just moving to a new phase."-
The mad dog image of sinking teeth into an ankle is apropos. Clinton's behavior has been extremely bizarre and strange for the past two months. She must have realized for the past two months that there was no way for her to win the nomination. It is really hard to see what she has been trying to accomplish by bringing forth obviously bogus arguments that she is the better candidate to defeat McCain. The only things that I can think of is that a) she was trying to get enough delegates to assure her of the vice-presidential spot, or failing that, b) she was planning on running as an independent candidate.
It now appears that she is trying to pressure Obama to take her as vice-president. Looking at this from Obama's side, what does he gain by choosing her. The answer is practically nothing. The I-will-vote-for- Clinton-or-McCain faction is very tiny. The polls might say it is 15 or 20% during the primaries, but come election time, it will really be just 2 or 3% of conservative women Democrats who will stay home or vote for the woman-hating ("At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you C___.")McCain. On the other hand, because she stirs up the loyal Clinton-hating base of the Republican Party, (2 or 3%) the net gain is really zero for Obama.
However, if he rejects her, what happens if she runs as an independent. She will be able to position herself as the candidate for change (a woman) and the candidate for conservatism (a continuation fo the Clinton years of relative prosperity, nothing too radical). In fact, she would have a fair chance of getting enough independents and conservative Democrats in enough key electorial states to make a legitimate run.
Perhaps the best thing for Obama to do at the moment is to pick a woman vice-presidential running-mate who is not Clinton. It will be an exclamation point that he is really the candidate for change. It will also give him someone who can vigorously attack Clinton, if she makes an independent run for the presidency, and not be accused of sexism.
An independent run is the only thing that Obama really has to fear from Clinton. That may be the pressure point that forces him to take her as his vice-presidential running mate. But, in this case, everyone would know that it was a shotgun wedding, with the threat of an independent candidacy pointng directly at Obama's back. Do shotgun marriages ever end happily?
