George Will: For Obama, a Ticket Test [Adding Hillary would diminish the ticket]

RCP ^ | June 6th, 2008 | George Will

[The_Republican]

An axiom. When voters watch a presumptive presidential nominee considering this or that running mate, they think: What if the president dies? When the presumptive nominee considers this or that running mate, he thinks: What if I live?

Which brings us to the dotty idea that Barack Obama should choose to have Hillary Clinton down the hall in the West Wing, nursing her disappointments, her grievances and her future presidential ambitions while her excitable husband wanders in the wings of America's political theater with his increasingly Vesuvian temper, his proclivity for verbal fender benders and his interesting business associates. That this idea survived her off-putting speech Tuesday night, after Obama won the right to choose a running mate, is evidence that many Democrats do not fathom the gratitude that less-blinkered Americans feel for Obama because he has closed the Clinton parenthesis in our presidential history.

After some of the boilerplate geographic pitter-patter that today's candidates consider Periclean eloquence (" ... from the hills of New Hampshire to the hollows of West Virginia ... "), she obliquely but clearly identified herself as the person who would be "the strongest candidate and the strongest president" and, pointedly, the person most ready to "take charge as commander in chief." There is a fine line between admirable tenacity and delusional denial, and Clinton tiptoed across it.

Obama's choice of a running mate will be the first important decision he makes with the whole country watching, so it will be a momentous act of self-definition. If he chooses her, it will be an act of self-diminishment, especially now that some of her acolytes are aggressively suggesting that some unwritten rule of American politics stipulates that anyone who finishes a strong second in the nomination contest is entitled to second place on the ticket.

[cubreporter]

I believe the man is smarter than that.

[Redbob]

If I were President Obama, with Hillary as Veep, I’d sleep with one eye open...

[COUNTrecount]

Clinton, having risen politically in her husband's orbit, is a moon shining with reflected light. Were Obama to hitch himself to her, he would reduce himself to a reflection of a reflection.

Thanks, great article.

[ml/nj]

Hey George!

Obama diminishes the ticket himself.

Can you imagine how easily the Dims would have won this year if they had some vanilla (ordinary, not necessarily white) party guy (not necessarily a male) like Gephardt or Biden at the top of the ticket?

ML/NJ

[allmendream]

“On the eve of the battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Nelson, addressing his captains on the HMS Victory, picked up a fire poker and said: It does not matter where I put this — unless Bonaparte tells me to put it a particular place. Then I must put it someplace else.”

This is an interesting anecdote. Can anyone tell me what Mr. Will is going for with it? Or what Nelson was trying to say? Mr. Will writes it as if it should be obvious, but its significance escapes me. Any help?

[The_Republican]

Those who want to lead, must learn to follow.

[The_Republican]

Is Obama Nelsonian?

I believe he is implying that Nelson came across as weak and pathetic in front of his troops when he basically portrayed himself as Napolean's dog.

Obama would become Nelson if Clintons tell him what he ought to do.

[allmendream]

??? how do you get from one to the other?

I was more going for a “please don't throw me in that briar patch” sort of thing.

Nelson has a poker and he wants to put it someplace, unless Napoleon tells him to put it somewhere, and then he must put it somewhere else.

Still not getting the moral or how it is applicable.

[Biblebelter]

If Barry listens to the wisdom of Michael Corleone, then he puts her on the ticket and gets himself lots of food tasters.

Michael Corleone:

"There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. "

If he does not pick Hillary, Hillary wins, she will undermine him in every way possible. Hillary WINS BIG if Barry loses and he did not put her on the ticket. She can always say in 2012 that Barry would have won had she been on the ticket.

[allmendream]

Nelson defeated Napoleons navy at the Nile and made him abandon his army in Egypt. Nelson was to go on to defeat his navy at Trafalgar and establish British naval supremacy for the next hundred years. Nelson was not Napoleon's dog, and his men adulated him on a level just below God and England itself.

[The_Republican]

You are right. I think he must be implying about changing his strategy based on your opponents actions.

[CollegeRepublican]

But unlike Michael Corleone, Osama Obama does not have the balls to kill his enemies after keeping them close, see Brother in law Carlo for example. Obama as Michael would be the one getting the bullet in the eye or stabbed in the back.

[allmendream]

That is what I think as well, although it doesn't seem as obvious to me as George Will thinks it should be.

Nelson/Obama plans on doing something, but if it looks like that is what Napoleon/Clinton wants him to do; then he has to do something different.

[Biblebelter]

But unlike Michael Corleone, Osama Obama does not have the balls to kill his enemies after keeping them close, see Brother in law Carlo for example. Obama as Michael would be the one getting the bullet in the eye or stabbed in the back.

You are right. The only real crime family here is the Clinton crime family. Obama represents a bunch college radicals who like his buddy Bill Ayers will engage in criminality, but their true criminalily will not realized until like all Marxists they get to give orders to the state police and the armed forces.