Why Barack Needs Hillary
07 July 2008 12:11 am by Taylor Marsh
Originally published for Pajamas
Media
BY TAYLOR MARSH
 |
Does Obama need Clinton? Or do they actually now need each other? Or maybe
it’s the Democrats who need them both.
After all, not long after the journalistic stories started popping on President
Clinton’s “kiss
his ass” line, you had Hillary’s former campaign director Terry
McAuliffe on CNN saying Bill
and Barack would talk within “24 hours.” The next thing you
knew, the Democratic nominee reached out in a call to WJC, then released
a statement to calm the clattering.
“Senator Obama had a terrific conversation with President Clinton
and is honored to have his support in this campaign. He has always believed
that Bill Clinton is one of this nation’s great leaders and most brilliant
minds, and looks forward to seeing him on the campaign trail and receiving
his counsel in the months to come,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill
Burton.
Can’t have the only two-term Democratic president in modern history seen
to be dissing the current nominee, especially since the former’s wife
not only finished in a virtual tie for the nomination battle, but now is the
strongest female political vote getter in Democratic Party history, having far
greater importance today than when she began running in 2007. Hillary Clinton’s
star has not stopped rising after losing the nomination, especially in the demographics
battle Obama is looking at in order to reach 270 electoral votes. Obama’s
“new” map to win in November is still far from certain. It’s
just one reason some are saying Obama may need Hillary to seal the deal. He
certainly cannot do it without her.
The question remains, in what way would the Obama — Hillary team work
best? Some clearly believe it’s in the vice presidential slot, part of
what Gail
Sheehy reports in her Vanity Fair piece for August. As an aside,
I bumped into Ms. Sheehy at Clinton’s big generational women’s event
in Washington, D.C, when she was talking to people about the pending outcome
of the race. Her piece touches on all sorts of elements, including the inevitable
swirling veep rumors:
Later that month Bill Clinton let it be known, through anonymous friends
who talked to Time magazine and The New York Times, that “if she’s
not going to be the nominee, then [Bill] wants her in the second spot.”
ABC News’s chief Washington correspondent, George Stephanopoulos, reported
that Bill believed his wife had “earned the offer of vice president.”
Anonymous friends of Bill Clinton? Having covered Clinton for the
last eighteen months, I learned long ago to not buy into any blind,
anonymous, once removed, an adviser said, a close Clinton
confidant told me, on condition on anonymity quotes that reveal
anything at all revelatory, let alone something as important as “Bill
believed his wife had ‘earned the offer of vice president.’”
No matter the respect of the reporter writer the tale, most of this stuff turns
out to be untrue.
That said, there is a huge amount of truth in the substance of that
particular Bill quote, anonymous or not, because many Clinton supporters agree
with it, so how could WJC not? After winning 17 million votes, finishing stronger
than the nominee, with a voting base he doesn’t have, why wouldn’t
Senator Obama seriously consider Hillary Clinton as his top choice as running
mate?
When you look at Obama’s electoral map, the supposed new road he intends
to draw to 270, the hill is a hard one to climb, with no proof even Barack
Obama’s 50-state strategy will do it, regardless of his die hard supporter’s
delusional dreams about “winning
without Ohio and Florida.” Thomas Schaller, someone I’ve interviewed
a couple of times on the Democratic folly of courting the southern vote, recently
wrote that regardless of what Obama’s team thinks, The
South Will Fall Again to Republicans.
… Mississippi, the state with the nation’s highest percentage
of African-Americans in its population, illustrates how difficult Mr. Obama’s
task will be in the South. Four years ago, President Bush beat John Kerry
there by 20 points. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Mr.
Obama could increase black turnout in Mississippi to 39 percent of the statewide
electorate, up from 34 percent in 2004, according to exit polls. And let’s
assume that Mr. Obama will win 95 percent of those voters, up from the 90
percent who voted for Mr. Kerry four years ago.If that happened, the black vote would yield Mr. Obama 37 percent of Mississippi’s
statewide votes. To get the last 13 percent he needs for a majority, Mr. Obama
would need to persuade a mere 21 percent of white voters in Mississippi to
support him. Sounds easy, right?But only 14 percent of white voters in the state supported Mr. Kerry. Mr.
Obama would need to increase that number by 7 percentage points – a 50 percent
increase. Mr. Obama struggled to attract white Democrats in states like Ohio
and South Dakota. It strains credulity to believe that he will attract three
white voters in Mississippi for every two that Mr. Kerry did….
I’ve never been convinced of Obama’s “new” map, worried
that even though Senator Obama’s strengths are real, he could win the
popular vote down south, but still leave the majority of these states to McCain,
which would have our side falling short electorally in a year that is the Democrats
to lose. So if Schaller is correct and Obama can’t turn the south beyond
popular vote, one becomes even more convinced she’s the one.
See West Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, Ohio… and Florida.
Obama’s got to be asking himself who can deliver what he cannot? A national
security veep is important, but what state can he or she deliver? Bill Clinton
can certainly coax out rural voters who love him, making them more comfortable
with a President Obama. But as good as Bill is he’s no Hillary, whose
star has now risen to equal status of any other, especially since the race has
opened out on to Hillary standing very much alone, without Bill, having found
her voice, her stride, and full political independence from her president husband.
Finishing at the top of her game with her power base still intact, not to mention
grumbling, instead of dimming, Hillary’s influence and importance is considerably
greater than when she started. Nobody can talk middle class economics like Clinton
who can attach a voter’s concerns to real solutions she understands and
can explain, something Obama can’t yet match, with John McCain still hopelessly
befuddled on the subject.
Clinton’s recent speech in Unity,
New Hampshire not only reminded everyone of what these two candidates bring
separately, but how they stack up side-by-side as a team. It also re-electrified
and reinvigorated her supporters, drove home to ambivalent Obama supporters
what her substance adds to his star power, making it clear that even though
each are strong in their own right, equals even, they look and sound unbeatable
together.
