Clintons Pushing the "Dream Ticket"

I've noticed a new talking point at Clinton events - the Hillary-Obama ticket. Both Hillary and Bill are talking it up:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary and Bill Clinton are again teaming up on Barack Obama -- this time saying the first-term U.S. lawmaker, whom they have derided as inexperienced, would be a strong running mate on a Democratic presidential ticket headed by the former first lady.

In talking up a joint ticket, the Clintons may be seeking the upper hand, attempting to put her in consideration for the top of the ticket when she so far has failed to win the votes necessary to assure that she would face Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the November election.

The maneuver may also be aimed at countering an image in voters' minds of Obama as presidential material and at helping restore an aura of inevitability as the party's nominee that Clinton had early in the campaign but lost.

"The Clintons are in a difficult position," said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Iowa, who has tracked the presidential race.

"If she wins the Democratic presidential nomination, she would need Obama's supporters. But she needs to be careful. If this talk of him on the ticket is seen as a cynical maneuver, it could backfire and hurt her," Goldford said.

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, an Obama backer, mocked the idea.

"It may be the first time in history that the person who is running number two would offer the person running number one the number two position," Daschle told "Meet the Press."

Obama stated that he's not going to be a VP candidate, but he hasn't come out and flatly turned down the idea.

There another "dream ticket" that one blogger refers to as a "nightmare scenario" - Gore-Obama.

This is the nightmare scenario that wakes me up at night. And its so easy to see it develop.

Hillary wins big in Penn and PR, while Obama continues to sweep up some smaller states. Neither is close to the majority number, but Hillary refuses to give in.

More and more polling begins to suggest — as Pew does today — that Obama will lose a significant number of blue collar “Archie Bunker” democrats that are currently supporting Hillary, but will vote for McCain before Obama. This will give McCain states like Ohio, Michigan, and Penn.

Superdelegate/party leaders will know that they cannot alienate African-American voters by stealing the nomination away from Obama that he seems to have won, so voting for Hillary when she is behind in vote total and elected delegates is not an option.

Above and beyond that, they really just don’t want a rerun of the Billary Show in the WH.

Obama cannot put together an electoral map in November that produces a winning number.

Solution — go to Obama and ask him to take the No. 2 slot with Al Gore as the nominee. Obama then releases his delegates to vote for Gore after the Superdelegates place his name in nomination.

Gore then wins the nomination on the first ballot, and the Billary vampire is slain.

The African-American voter is satisfied because Obama is satisfied to be No. 2 behind Gore while he waits his turn.

Gore holds on to the “Archie Bunker” democrats that are backing Hillary right now.

Gore rolls to a 52-48 win over McCain with 350 electoral votes, winning states like Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, NewHampshire, and maybe even Florida, while holding on to everything he and Kerry won before.

I have to disagree with the blogger on this one. His Gore-Obama scenario assumes a political pragmatism on the part of Democrats that just simply doesn't exist. Democrats run on emotion, not logic.

The blogger thinks that the Obama supporters will be mollified by the fact that Obama was party to this effort and will be happy just to see him on the ticket. No way. Do you really think the voters who have poured their heart and soul into the religious revival that is his campaign will be content to sit back and let some fat old white guy loser shunt him aside? It'll never happen. Obama will be seen as a sell-out and his support will evaporate.

And what about the Clintonistas? Do you think they'll sit idly by and let this happen? The Clintons hate Gore and while the Clintonistas may not hate him as much, they certainly won't just let their gal come in second but get knocked completely off the ticket by two men *horrors*.

It's an interesting mental exercise, but I don't think there's any reality to it.

UPDATE: From Mona Charen at The Corner:

Hillary as Veep? [Mona Charen]

I was just on the John Batchelor radio program. He says that Chuck Todd, NBC News political director, has heard from Hillary's people that she would accept the number two spot on the ticket.

She just wants to be in there somewhere. Personally, I think Obama would be crazy to take her. Does he really want to be in a campaign with Hillary and Bill?

Here's a program note for Monday night - on HolyCoast.com ON THE AIR my special guest will be Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost the Family Research Council, and who for 30 days was also a member of Team Huck, the Mike Huckabee campaign. The show kicks off at 7pm PT and you can click on the icon to join the show. We'll be talking about all this crazy stuff.