<p>Obama has better not pick HRC as his VP. It’s going to destroy a lot of his image to “cave in” to “old politics.”</p>
<p>It’s President McCain.</p>
<p>I will lose some respect for Hillary if she accepts any VP offer (assuming it will be offered). VP is just a ceremonial position (Cheney is the exception). </p>
<p>She can be more powerful in the Senate. I think she owes it to her voters to return to the senate and push some of her programs. The current ineffective leadership of the DNC is not going to put Health care reform as a top priority (Obama Surrogate Kerry said so himself).</p>
<p>Hillary, I will advice you to put some distance between yourself and the new party. Don’t be part of any deal offered by the party.</p>
<p>I’m hoping he doesn’t pick Hillary but that sure seems to be the tune her campaign is singing, Bill is pushing for and what all this seems about at this point. </p>
<p>To that end, given the scene some of her supporters made before the DNC on Saturday, I think there is real concern that Obama cannot recapture her base (certainly her supporters screaming they will support McCain shows they just can’t see the forest for the trees and that, for example, electing McCain guarantees that the next Supreme Court opening will allow a shift in voting that will take this country back to the stone age in terms of civil liberties). </p>
<p>People are too often willing to vote against their own self interest and repeatedly, Clinton supporters indicate they won’t support Obama, which event is McCain’s only hope of election. To reel these folks in it looks like Hillary is the VP choice and I don’t see any other “prize” she can be promised and she’s not holding on this long for the fun of it.</p>
<p>To this end, I don’t think Clinton is well liked enough by her peers to wield too much power in the Senate. No cabinet post is worth all this. Can’t see her wanting to be GUV of NY has some have floated out there. She’s got as much Darth Vadar in her as does Cheney and could keep the trend of influence from the VP office going. </p>
<p>Also, if Obama is elected and the admin is a success and she serves as VP, she’ll still be young enough to serve one term as Prez if elected in 2016.</p>
<p>Not hoping for it, but still thinkin’ Obama/Clinton will be announced in the next few days.</p>
<p>I don’t think Obama can get it done without Hillary Clinton. </p>
<p>His earnest supporters are idealistic and dreamy, but they perhaps lack the spit and vinegar necessary to beat McCain. It is this unbearably light tendency of the Obama campaign that unnerves me. Hillary on the other hand is almost painfully realistic, even pugilistic when it comes to politics and power. As are a great many of her supporters. I don’t think they are bluffing. </p>
<p>ANyhow, I’d rather have Hillary in a knife fight. And that is what this will be.</p>
<p>Hope and change are firestarters for romance and they will flush the cheeks of the innocent in the first blush of love, but they are not enough for the coming battle. As it is, I am afraid that this is a flirtation that will not endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.</p>
<p>I absolutely believe that without Hillary on the ticket, it will be McCain in ’08.</p>
<p>I don’t think Hillary will be on the ticket. </p>
<p>The Democrats will live and die by this one.</p>
<p>What exactly is a “surrogate”? Tega and Idad say Kerry is an Obama surrogate. Bill Clinton says Father Pfleger:eek: is an Obama surrogate! Wha…?</p>
<p>Well, if we are going to talk in metaphors and literary genres, I’d say that the Clintons sure know how to provide drama. And Bill is not the only one in that menage who knows how to parse.</p>
<p>If the Dems die, how much blame should accrue to the Bill and Hill show?</p>
<p>I’d like to say that interesteddad is wrong but he’s not. This is a trainwreck. This will be worse than McGovern. Certainly as bad. All McCain has to do is as little as possible and the election is his. Don’t ad lib. Don’t actually say anything at all. Loose the hounds. Pick a conventional VP. And John will be riding his Hoverround down Pennsylvania Avenue.</p>
<p>IMO “Reagan Democrats” have been and are the key to every election. Obama will get …none of them. His wife, his minister, his church, his own gaffes about white America have successfully poisoned his relationship with them. </p>
<p>American politics tried and true - radicalize your opponent. He will continue to be marginalized and by election day it will be only the true believers. </p>
<p>The conundrum for Democratic presidential condidates continues. How do I move far enough left to get the nomination without crippling myself in November? </p>
<p>I’ll use my old reference because I think it is more pointed (because of the personalities used) than one from today. 1/3 of Americans would vote for Jesse Jackson. 1/3 would vote for Jesse Helms. It’s the voters in the middle that count.</p>
<p>We let this wonderful opportunity escape us.</p>
<p>I do think Obama has a big challenge with moderate Democrats, but it has nothing to do with “new” Democrats. Obama is really not that different from lots of the liberal Democrats that have come before him, except that he is black. I guess that’s what Republicans are hinting at when they refer to the “New Democratic Party”–they mean the Black Democratic Party. Keep watching them for even more clever ways of playing that card. I’m hoping that Obama will be able to overcome that kind of politics, with some help from McCain, who is not likely to keep quiet.</p>
<p>McCain/Clinton 2008</p>
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<p>I say this with all due respect. You Obama people just need to shut the up about what Clinton supports think and what they will or will not do. The arrogance with which you call life-long Democrats racists or too stupid to vote “their own self-interest” or unneeded by the New Democratic Party is the reason you don’t have have a solid base.</p>
<p>If the Dems die it will be because they have not created nor valued the broad base of folks out there that they need to win. Right now there appears to be two camps. Wake up. The two camps need to be one and they need to get down to the business of winning or they lose. Clinton hatred/blame or Obama hatred/blame will win nothing. It is stupid. Can’t we just get along? :)</p>
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<p>I think the New Democratic Party should just move as far left as they can. With the coalition they have put together (African Americans, college students, and Pelosi/Dean Starbucks liberals), they won’t get moderate voters no matter what they say. Might as well work the base (moveon and dkos) and see what happens.</p>
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<p>That’s where you are wrong. There are New Democrats and Ex-Democrats.</p>
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I seem to remember some elections where the old Democratic party only won Massachusetts and Washington DC.</p>
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<p>Perhaps you missed the recent California Supreme Court decision, which was decided by Republican appointees… :)</p>
<p>You think organized labor will go for McCain? I don’t. I think the Democratic Party in November will look a lot like the same old Democratic Pary we’ve had for a long time. The party is in the process of choosing a liberal candidate this time, which I admit is a big risk. But to suggest that there’s some kind of “new” coalition led by African-Americans is just race-baiting. If the liberal candidate was white, you wouldn’t be saying it–you’d rather be saying that the Democrats are going back to the losing ways of Dukakis, Kerry, and Gore.</p>
<p>Why are the Hillary supporters so full of vitriol?</p>
<p>Vitriol is vitriol, “will all due respect” or not.:o</p>
<p>Her supporters are coming across as bitter sore losers. That will do nothing to help the party. It just further damages the Clinton “legacy”.</p>
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<p>This new coalition (which is not all that new) has been tried before, and it failed, and I know that it is going to fail again this fall. I am very glad to get off this wreck before it falls any further.</p>
<p>I don’t understand this business of being sore losers. I supported Bloomberg, Rudy, and Bush 2000 (I have really being embarrassed by this decision). You can support the person, but not the party.</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay, I think you have forgotten that after Mccgovern and Dukasis the party tried to change the coalition, and they were successful with Bill Clinton. Now the party wants to form a new party different from what Bill was able to put together. </p>
<p>I wish the party luck.</p>
<p>Bush didn’t have organized labor and he won. McCain doesn’t need it to win. Obama has more skeletons in the closet.</p>