Obama-Clinton ticket is no dream

Marsha Mercer
Published: June 9, 2008

WASHINGTON

Nobody listens to Jimmy Carter anymore, but once in a while, they should.

The former president has publicly advised Barack Obama not to pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

“I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made,” he told a British newspaper, the Guardian.

That’s an exaggeration, but for several reasons pairing Obama and Clinton would be more nightmare than dream ticket for Democrats — even if she did win the votes of nearly 18 million people.

Carter, who endorsed Obama Tuesday, said the ticket “would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates.” Polls show 50 percent of American voters have a negative view of Clinton, he said.

“If you take that 50 percent who just don’t want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don’t think Obama is white enough or old enough or experienced enough or because
he’s got a middle name that sounds Arab, you could have the worst of both worlds,” he said in the Guardian interview.

The drumbeat for Clinton as vice president started with Clinton, who, after persisting in the presidential race as long as she possibly could, said she was willing to take the No. 2 job. How magnanimous of
her.

Obama parried by announcing a three-person vice presidential search committee that includes Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg.

He said on NBC, “We’re not going to be rushed into it,” and, “I don’t think Senator Clinton expects a quick decision and I don’t even know that she’s interested in that.”

Unnamed Obama sources say in news reports that a sticking point could be Bill Clinton’s reluctance to reveal the names of major donors to his presidential library and details of his business dealings.
And then there’s an unflattering portrait of him in Vanity Fair. Do people want to go back to that in the White House?

Besides aggregating the negative qualities of both candidates, an Obama-Clinton ticket would send a muddled message about experience and change. Does her presence mean he really needs her 30
years of experience after all? Would he be able to deliver change in the nation’s capital with someone with tight ties to Washington’s old ways?

Some observers say Clinton doesn’t really want to be vice president; she just wants to be asked as a sign of respect. That’s ludicrous, and anyone who’d gamble on such a risky proposition is not cut out
to negotiate with the likes of Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

Lanny J. Davis, a former Clinton White House special counsel and longtime Clinton friend, has launched a petition drive on http://www.womenforfairpolitics.com asking Obama to choose Clinton.

“Both you and Senator Clinton during this campaign have demonstrated strengths in different segments of the electorate and in different parts of the country,” Davis wrote.

For his part, Obama moved Thursday to show he doesn’t need Clinton to translate for him with white voters in Appalachia.

He chose Bristol, on the edge of Southwest Virginia coal country, for the first public event of his general campaign, he said, because it’s an example of places in America where people have been
forgotten.

He told the crowd in a high school gym that Washington hasn’t been listening to or paying attention to people like them — but he pledged that as the next president, he would.

He elaborated on his proposal to provide health care “for all,” which Clinton had knocked as leaving out millions.

Davis writes that if Obama picks Clinton, “together, you will stand the best chance of making U.S. history not once but twice — the first African American president and the first female vice president...”

Maybe someone who aims to become the first black president in history should consider that momentous enough for one election.

Jimmy Carter suggested Obama needs as his running mate someone like Sam Nunn of Georgia, who spent 24 years in the Senate and was chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

A white Southern male with strong foreign policy credentials who’ll turn 70 in September — that could be a good choice.

What do you think? Comment at http://www.mgwashington.com.