Many Clinton supporters find the current attempts to muscle her out of the race despicable. Maybe now is the time for Obama to take one for the team and accept her offer of the VP slot. It is the position he is better qualified for, would end a situation that is supposedly hurting the party, and would put him in a better position to run next time. Clinton has no “next time,” so it makes more sense for Obama to be the one to step aside.
(1) Which "team," exactly, would Obama allegedly be "taking one for" were he to concede his widely acknowledged front-runner status and deign to accept a Vice-Presidential offer from the candidate he's outpaced in terms of delegates since the very first contest of this primary? Surely not the Democratic Party -- again, insofar as he's won more votes, more delegates, and more contests than his opponent. Surely not "progressives" insofar as both campaigns have readily conceded that both Senators are coming from highly comparable policy positions. The only conceivable "team" DS is referencing is the Clinton Campaign itself, and the fact this poster cannot muster the courage to articulate this realization only serves to underscore the delusional duplicity at work here. What, pray tell, does Senator Obama owe the Clinton family? Just about every arguably objective metric suggests that Obama would be a far stronger candidate in the general election. This primary season has been remarkable in many respects, but there's something awfully telling about the fact that, for instance, the Republicans crossing over to vote for Senator Clinton are doing so with malicious intent at the behest of that drug-addled gasbag Rush Limbaugh while those who cross over for Senator Obama do so because they genuinely want to see him elected. Those with brains are encouraged to draw their own conclusions, here. The rest of you are free to keep spitting Penn and Rove's talking points.
(2) Setting aside the fact this poster fails (in the excerpt provided by Josh) to present a single reason why Obama is ostensibly more qualified to be Vice-President than President, the record suggests that, if anything, Obama is eminently more qualified than Senator Clinton to be President. While he may not have dodged intentionally imaginary sniper fire in Bosnia, Obama's personal, professional, academic and political trackrecords all suggest that he is the far more qualified candidate in this race. Coupled with the fact (see above) that he has bested Senator Clinton in the primary contests to-date by virtue of running a vastly superior campaign means that any reasonable and charitable observer would be -- at best -- left scratching their heads at the suggestion that Obama ought accept a VP spot on a Clinton ticket. Reading one's two-term tenure as First Lady as presidential "experience" or "qualification" leads to the nauseating conclusion that Laura Bush is qualified to be Commander-in-Chief. I highly doubt any Democrat would agree with that conclusion, Clinton-backer or otherwise. Why else, really, would Senator Clinton feel obligated to exaggerate, misrepresent, indeed distort her resume as First Lady? It's because she, more than anyone, knows that the checks drafted by her primary rhetoric simply can't be cashed by the bank of reality. Her multiple obfuscations of her record on the campaign trail only serve to underscore this point. I'm no political genius, but I ceratinly would have refrained from advising anyone, and certainly not Clinton, to frame their entire campaign around the theme of "experience" before knowing damn sure that said candidate had the genuine experience to back up so bold a claim when running against a decorated veteran with decades of Washington experience.
(3) While the original poster seems reluctant to concede that the current situation is hurting the party, there is simply no doubt that the only thing hurting the party at this point is the manner in which the Clinton campaign has deliberately chosen to attack a fellow Democrat. Examples abound, but all I need invoke is the deal-breaking Clintonian endorsement of our own damn opponent as more qualified to be commander-in-chief. There's knee-capping and then there's "knee-capping," but to explicitly suggest that the opposition party's nominee is more qualified than one's own fellow Democrat is a risible offense no figure-skating analogy could fully capture. This isn't Tonya Harding, folks; indeed, this is the political equivalent of a suicide bombing (i.e., "If I can't have it, then I'll make damn sure my fellow Democrat won't have it either!"). To deliberately set out to handicap the chances of the presumptive nominee of your very own party in light of the fact that you failed to secure a legal and honorable path to the nomination on your own merits is simply disgraceful. The ease with which the Clinton campaign and its surrogate-supporters have turned to echoing right-wing talking points would be disturbing if it weren't so sadly predictable at this point. Bill Clinton on Rush Limbaugh? Hillary Clinton slandering her Democratic colleague via Richard Scaife's joke of a news-rag? It's the Bush policy of "with-us-or-against-us" being bluntly applied without conscience to a promising member of one's own party. A member, I should add, who has been beating her since Day One of the Democratic primary season.
(4) I'm unsure why the poster believes Clinton "has no next time," but I also fail to grasp why any of us who care about the future of the party and the future of our nation should believe this is in any way relevant. I'm sorry Clinton squandered her perceived window of opportunity to run for president, but why in God's name is that any of our concern?
If one is going to make the intellectually lazy claim that Obama is "arrogant" and that it's his "arrogance" standing between Hillary Clinton and her rightful place on the Democratic presidential ticket, I suggest you take a long, close look at the glass house from within which you're rock-lobbing. There are a few different ways to parse this claim, none of which -- in the final analysis -- are very flattering to Clinton or her backers.
(1) Obama is "arrogant" because he's young/inexperienced/etc.
- On Principle: If HRC were so experienced, what's with the obvious and embarrassing resume puffing and/or outright distortion surrounding her putative experience? It's not sexist to observe that First Spouses typically don't accumulate the sort of experience demanded of a President. The day Laura Bush is sworn in as commander-in-chief is the day I put a bullet in my brain.
- On Tactics: Does HRC really think she can beat McCain on the merits of her "experience"? As others have observed, all the GOP need do is run clips of her duplicitous claims of combat experience against very real footage of McCain's military service to his country. This is a non-starter for Democrats (remember: we had an actual war hero running in '04 against a draft-dodging rich kid and it failed miserably), which is precisely why the post-Boomer Obama has so masterfully framed this election in terms of new-vs-old, judgment-vs-tenure, unity-vs-division, and hope-vs-fear. He doesn't need to posture as a wannabe war hero because he isn't one and doesn't claim to be one. He's a statesman and he's poised to make the credible case that the last thing this nation needs in a president at this point is a military man bound to a cold war conception of the world at large. Hillary's strategy, by comparison, has been to try to convince the electorate that she's not just as "tough" as the Republicans, but tougher. Evidently, she finds the strategy plausible enough to justify falsifying her actual experience, such as it is. If you think Kerry got a raw deal in '04, just wait until you see the shitstorm an HRC-McCain match-up would provoke. Shorter version: McCain is both more experienced and older than Clinton. POINT: McCain
(2) Related to but distinct from interpretation (1) is the idea that Obama is "arrogant" because he's less qualified/capable/savvy/intelligent than Clinton.
- On Principle: This claim is prima facie false. Obama has accomplished more than Clinton as a legislator, has out-performed her in a host of the standard social metrics of capability and intelligence (e.g., academic performance, for starters; but more importantly: the success and competence with which he has guided his primary campaign, the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence as to the depth of his abilities as an executive). This is not to deny Clinton's formidable intelligence and ability to master policy nuances, BUT:
- On Tactics: Even granting a draw on this point leaves Obama with the advantage for the (misleadingly) simple reason that while Clinton knows her shit, Obama both knows his shit and can get others motivated to do something about it, be it his peers in the legislature or his people on the ground. Nominating a candidate with the sort of negative numbers Hillary "enjoys" is a return to Dukakisizing the party and a terrible, terrible strategic move. For all the noise Clinton makes about being a "fighter" she seems oblivious to the idea that, tactically speaking, the strongest fighters are precisely the ones who don't have to rely on talk about their pugilistic prowess. Just words, indeed. Obama's cool-headed and even-handed diplomatic approach to matters is a net positive for progressives. He doesn't waste valuable time beating his chest, instead he motivates and mobilizes. The fightin' on this model, like much of his campaign, moves from the bottom up, not vice versa. Surely the party that championed the rights of labor can appreciate the wisdom of this approach.
(3) I hesitate to include this, lest I be accused of all manner of things, but: Obama is "arrogant" because, as a black male, he needs to shut up and wait his turn. Now, before anyone goes blowing this out of proportion or context, be clear: I'm not accusing all or even many, much less most of Clinton's supporters of acting on racist (or racially suspect) motives. But the tenor of the campaign at this point hasn't done much to assuage my fear that even the campaign itself wouldn't sink so low as to employ race-baiting against a fellow Democrat. When HRC backers start quoting Hannity and Scaife, I shudder for the future of the Democratic Party.
- On Principle: Unacceptable. No exceptions. We're better and bigger than this. If the only way for your Democratic candidate to win is to play to a portion of the electorate's irrational fears (be it race or religion or whatever), then it's game over: we've become what we set out to defeat.
- On Tactics: Do I really need to spell out why the Democratic Party can't afford to alienate its most consistently reliable electoral demographic to-date? Despite the ease with which the Clintons (behind the scenes) throw around the phrase "political suicide," that is precisely what we'd face in November if our candidate reached his or her position as a result of racial or religious insinuation. As far as I know.
Postscript: This post originated as a comment in another thread. I wanted to preserve it for the purpose of expanding and correcting it upon further reflection. I'm especially curious to see what other observers of this race make of this, admittedly skeletal, analysis.
