Who Will Be Hillary’s Running Mate?

There has been a lot of talk and trepidation about a Hillary-Obama ticket for the Dems in 2008, and some of the talk and trepidation has come from the source you’re reading right now. I’m starting to think that, while the “Hillary” part will happen (and I have predicted that it will happen really soon), that the “Obama” part won’t.

Barack Obama, by virtue of his existence and his recent actions, has several things going against him:

(1) Ambition. His trips to New Hampshire, and his prostration to the MSM hype about him, has provoked his Presidential ambitions. Ever since the JFK assassination, and LBJ’s name being invoked in just about every third conspiracy theory, Presidential candidates have avoided ambitious running mates. Don’t forget, LBJ was Senate Majority Leader in 1960, and, at the beginning of that year, he was considered the odds on favorite to win the Democrat nomination. Kennedy’s money and mob connections carried the day, obviously. The point here is that Obama now has too much ambition to be a desirable Number Two for anyone who is a Number One.

(2) Black, Part 1. The Democrats get 99 percent of the black vote no matter what; they will get 99 percent of the black vote in 2008 if Obama’s the #2, and they’ll get 99 percent of the black vote if a white man is the #2. So in terms of their base, Obama is inconsequential. However, if Obama is anywhere on the ticket, the Dems can kiss the South goodbye, and, knowing the last two Presidential elections, that means the whole shootin’ match.

The Democrats have a pretty shrewd strategy with dealing with their race problem. They know they’ll never lose the black vote, but they can lose enough whites to lose overall. So they cover up their racial pandering, with the help of the media, and the duplicity of the Stupid Party, which itself has pandering problems. Then they couch their campaign themes in economic populism, which is nothing but a winner politically.

The Stupid Party, on the other hand, does stupid things like pandering to minorities when they get none of their vote, and the pandering chases away white voters.

Both of the Clintons have keen political instincts. I think Hillary has it in her head that Obama on the ticket will cost her the White House, and won’t pick him. The Democrats in general, and the Clintons in particular, are too clever to fall into this trap.

(3) Black, Part 2. If Hillary would pick Obama, and that ticket would win, just about every black militant in the country would be hunting her head. That was one of the problems with Pat Buchanan’s dunderhead choice of Ezola Foster for a running mate in 2000. One of the reasons why the American system evolved such that Presidential nominees pick their potential Vice-Presidents, instead of having the second-highest vote-getter in the Electoral College become VP, (usually the main contender from the opposing political party), is assassination indemnity for the President. Barack Obama as VP would not fill that role very well.

With those problems with Mr. Obama having been established, I don’t think Hillary will pick another woman as her running mate. (Sorry, Claire.) Women can become viciously vindictive and competitive and jealous of each other when they’re in the same arena; I think all the newfound media adoration of Nancy Pelosi has taught Hillary a lesson about that sort of thing.

Rush Limbaugh this morning cited a study by the Max Planck Institute about the “Queen Bee Syndrome,” on how women in power will discriminate against other women in terms of promotions and advancement. And the front of Drudge at the time of this writing has the headline: “NANCY PELOSI: ‘I AM THE MOST POWERFUL WOMAN IN AMERICA.’” This has to be eating Hillary up today, and definitely dissuading her from elevating another woman.

If/when Hillary wins the nomination, considering Obama’s problems, considering the problems of having another woman, and considering the Democrats’ Southern Problem, I think she would pick a relatively popular but mild-mannered and ostensibly unambitious white male Democratic Southern Governor as her running mate. Two candidates that jump right out at me are Tennessee’s Phil Bredesen, and Oklahoma’s Brad Henry.