A Missed Opportunity

August 23, 2008 Uncategorized 4

I’m trying hard to get excited about the selection of Joe Biden for VP (he’s a Syracuse alumn after all), but I just can’t.  Not now.  I think the Obama camp made a serious mistake not ofering the slot to Hillary Clinton who would have truly made this a historic ticket.  Millions of voters, a huge political machine and fundraising army, plus strength in areas Obama was weak — that what Hillary would have brought to the table. 

I have to believe ego was at play here and the Obama team selected the person best for Obama and not the team best for the party or the nation.

Obama and Biden still have my vote and my support, but until I hear how they plan to leverage some of Hillary’s platform into the party’s platform for 2008, well, count me a PUMA.

Perhaps I will change my tune after Biden’s speech.  We’ll see.

4 Comments

  1. Perhaps a missed opportunity for the campaign but will make for a much better running White House. Just couldn’t see Obama and Clinton teams working together for 4 years. The issues with having the spouse of a former president as your VP are just too much. There would have been too much ego floating around even for 1600 Pennsylvania. Missed historic opportunity that may hurt (or may help) the campaign but showed leadership, independence, commitment to change (somewhat – let’s see if Joe can break from his past financial corp. funders) and did what the nation will need in the long run.
    It’s not the popularity contest that so many treat it as but is, at least ideally, about selecting who will best lead and administer..

  2. Dan I am going to have to disagree with you. I think an Obama/Clinton ticket would lose and lose badly. I’ve never bought the “she brings 18 million voters” argument. I am not sure that a Clinton will ever win another national election again. There are too many bad feelings among a lot of Democrats and the Republicans HATE, HATE, HATE, her (and him). Nothing would energize the Republican base like a Clinton. And frankly, I think she ran an awful campaign, and the recent memos leaked to the Atlantic highlight this. So I don’t think she even brings a good machine with her. Perhaps she has a good fundraising mechanism, but that is about it. Frankly, I think Obama has one of the best fundraising mechanisms I have seen. And lastly, I really don’t know what gaps she fills for Obama. She has less legislative experience (and I would argue less overall experience), doesn’t really have anymore foreign policy experience, economic experience, etc. The only thing I would say is that she does have the bruises from her failed health care to build upon, but I suspect she will be a key player on a health care policy anyway.

    And building on what Ken wrote, I think it would be an awful White House way too many egos.

    But the bottom line is that she lost. So therefore, Obama gets to select who he wants. He does not owe her anything.

  3. Points taken gentlemen, but Hillary has been a US Senator twice as long as Obama; from a policy perspective, both have similar policies. And if I can take you both back to that debate between the two of them at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, there was broad support for both of them to be on the ticket.

    I’m not saying I won’t vote for or support the Obama Biden ticket; I just think Obama bet on a weaker horse.

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