Last week I closed my column by promising to discuss the Clintons’ best chance for returning to the White House. I call this the Clintons’ ‘back door’ option because, while one might prefer to enter this house through the front door, if that entrance is blocked then why not go in through the back door? In other words, I think Hillary will try to gain entry as Barack Obama’s vice president.
Consider, if you will, that over one third of all US presidents served as the US vice president first, before later moving up to the top job.
Sometimes they assumed the presidency due to the untimely death of their predecessor, while at other times they won their party’s nomination and then the general election when the president they served under didn’t run again. But regardless of how they became commander-in-chief, the fact remains that serving as vice president is as good a stepping stone to the highest position as there is in US politics.
While I could be wrong, I strongly believe that the Clintons have done their math and come to the same conclusion; that getting on the ticket with Obama is their only other means of landing in the Oval Office again. This observation is also based on the end game I have watched the Clintons play ever since they and their closest advisors were finally forced to admit (privately, not publicly) that they had lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Obama due to the disappointing vote of no confidence they received in last month’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries. Once the reality sunk in, I believe that the Clintons and their top tactical adviser, Harold Ickes, began sorting through various possibilities that could get them back into the White House and then developed a strategy based on a number of different possibilities.
The first scenario involves continuing to search for information about Obama that could blow up his chances of clinching the Democratic nomination, while simultaneously toning down attacks on him to placate the concerns that the Clintons were hurting the Democratic Party by using such tactics. If no damaging information materialises, the Clintons could tout how they made nice once they saw the end in sight. Toning down their attacks also helps lay the groundwork for getting the Clintons on the ticket as Obama’s vice presidential running mate(s).
The second set-up involves a threat to fight on to the convention in August, thus maintaining rather than repairing the racial, gender and socioeconomic divisions the Clintons have opened up within the Democratic Party, and hurting Obama’s chances of wining the general election. More importantly, the prospect of losing in November because of these divisions scares Democratic leaders, so the Clintons believe this threat will cause them to pressure Obama to offer them the vice presidency.
The Clintons and Ickes have already calculated that they have a better chance of becoming president if Obama wins, even if they have to wait eight more years to run again, because they’ll be running as the incumbent vice president instead of running against an incumbent Democratic VP not named Clinton. Hillary will be 69 years old in 2016, and while that’s still younger than John McCain currently is, her age won’t be as much of a concern because of the other advantages she would enjoy running as a sitting vice president.
The Clintons also know that if they are not on the ticket and Obama loses this election to McCain, they are likely to be blamed by a large segment of the Democratic Party for their divisive primary attacks, which will hurt their chances of being the nominee in 2012. But if they are on the same ticket with Obama and lose, they will be more likely to get away with blaming Obama’s weaknesses, telling Democrats that they had tried to warn the party of such an outcome in spite of their best efforts to win as Obama’s running mate(s).
The Clintons’ arguments for why Democrats should pressure Obama to make Clinton his VP look good on paper because millions of Democrats voted for her in the primaries. But the Clintons conveniently ignore the fact that some of her less educated, white supporters will likely vote for McCain due to their latent racial prejudice, even if Obama chooses Clinton as his vice president.
Another fact the Clintons ignore is the likelihood that many of Obama’s younger, independent and Republican supporters will regard the choice of Clinton as a running mate as a sell-out to the ‘old politics’ that Obama has been campaigning against. The Clintons simply don’t fit Obama’s theme of change, which would lead some Obama supporters to either vote for McCain or not bother to vote at all.
Next week I’ll discuss a different career path for Hillary Clinton as a US supreme court justice along with a few other potential vice presidents.
Charles Laffiteau is a lifelong US Republican from Dallas, Texas who is now completing his University of Texas MA dissertation in Dublin, following his graduation from DCU with a MA in Globalisation. He will begin a PhD research programme in Environmental Studies in October
