Nothing personal against Senator Biden, but the Sarah Palin - teabag type of GOP is here to stay.
Whomever the 2012 GOP ticket consists of, its probably a safe bet that one of the spots will be a mama grizzly aka Palin or Haley. Having Hillary in the VP slot will provide a buffer to GOP 'Mama Grizzly' attacks.
And, let's face it, the midterms have shown us that the President needs to shore up the fractured base heading into his re-election.
This is not a new idea - it has already been written about and I have to agree with Mr. Hutchinson's assessment:
As Obama's VP in 2012, Hillary will bring the same top notch political qualities to the reelection campaign that she brought to the 2008 campaign. ... She will still be a role model and inspiration for millions of women young and old. She will prove that women can hold a top political power spot that requires providing valuable policy guidance and expertise on tough domestic and foreign policy issues...
Hillary will also bring another priceless quality to the ticket. She is not intimidated by the GOP smear machine.
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That last part about not being intimidated by the GOP is the most important.
By many observer's reckoning, President Obama came to Washington with a Senator's mentality. He tried to reason with the unreasonable, and in the end, it took Obama an entire year to get us a watered down form of Health care reform that the base was not inspired by and that the Democrats were unable to campaign on in the midterms. Heck, the only people running the Obama platform of Healthcare were Republicans.
Biden has not been an attack dog for the President, certainly not garnering the fear and loathing of Darth Cheney.
The face of the attack dog in the Obama administration was Rahm Emmanuel.
Yet, Rahm proved his pettiness by axing Howard Dean and his successful 50 state strategy (how's that working for us?)
and by meddling in Primaries in Colorado and Pennsylvania which will be giving the incoming GOP House something to 'investigate' (read witch-hunt) - and he certainly did not know how to appreciate the activists, to whom he called 'f*&cking retarded'.
The President can claim that he was too busy with the incredible mess that President Bush left him to inherit to notice these gaffes by Rahm, but that excuse is exactly that, an excuse - and people don't want excuses, they want leadership.
By picking Hillary for VP, Obama can remain calm and collected and Hillary can begin to twist arms in the Senate, a place where she was successful in her own right.
The Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachman echo chamber is about to get much, much louder.
We need a counter punch to that idiocy and Hillary is it.
This will also put the Big Dog back in the inner circle of the White House - and let's face it, Bill Clinton is still the most popular Democrat with the party faithful. This will also give Democrats a long term successor in 2016.
As for those that worry that putting Hillary in the VP slot will be akin to giving her and Bill too much power in the second Obama administration, I say this to you - we'd better do what we must NOW to ensure that there will be a second Obama administration at all - and deal with the other issues after he wins his second term.
I am sorry to say this so soon, Mr. President, but it is 3 am and you need some help in the White House. |
