Blowin' It

After the love-in at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, many were saying that those two candidates would make a great ticket, no matter who won the nomination. Despite the Kum Ba Yah moments and the cessation (for now) of the worst that Hillary's team is capable of, one wonders how that could even play out.

For Obama, assuming a Democratic victory, eight years in the vice presidency is a golden opportunity to groom for 2016, to be sure. But unless he had been handed a "thumpin" on February 5th, he will have lost a heart breaker involving party insiders, super delegates and the proverbial cigar smoke filled rooms.

A polite retreat to the Senate chamber might be the wisest course. He would have the inside track for 2012 should Clinton's team continue the trend of somehow, against all odds, blowin' it for the Democrats come November.

Hillary, on the other hand, has a good chance for a leadership post in the Senate, so it's harder to fathom her at #2 on an Obama ticket.

Harder still, come to think of it, it is to forget the nastiness dating back to David Geffen's early support of Obama, signaling cracks in the postulation of Hillary's inevitability.

Most relevant, for those familiar with the ugliness of late, is that Wolfson's attack on Obama, then, was triggered by Geffen's rationale. It's the same theme which will probably make or break it for Hillary in the primaries. Geffen had told Maureen Dowd that he made his decision because Hillary couldn't admit that her war vote was a mistake. (Eerily au courant.)

Now that we see her try to spin "due diligence" from what at the time was an ass cozy, you wonder if that Wolfson character is really much the brainiac after all. At the time, he tried to rationalize his aggression (he had gone all grass fire stompin') by calling Obama's new found support "the politics of trash."

It's hard for me to get at all enthused about him and "cocaine boy," Mark Penn, and I'm really sick of slash and burn from the finger wagger of old, but the RCP national poll still had Hillary up almost 10% as this went to posting. So these are the times that try some Democrats' souls.

(Yes, they do.)

John Edwards, whom both praised Thursday night, would certainly complement either candidate but he had gone after many of the folks who are invested in the Clintons.

And then there's the whole he apologized for his war vote matter. You can no longer underestimate the power of You Tube et.al.

(Awkward!)

And, always, there's the "Bill factor," which turns Hillary's veep choice into a number three at best.

Should they meet the expectations of those latest poll numbers, perhaps a Casper Milquetoast from deeper in the party's lineup is what to expect from the Presidents Clinton (both redux and bifurcus).

Listening to John McCain and Mitt Romney compete to ascribe Dubbya any legitimacy whatsoever is cause for me to hope that anyone could beat the Republicans handily. They have problems with honesty which neither Shakespeare nor David Letterman would wish on a capuchin monkey on a border collie, as it were.

I was in a 9th grade health class when the intercom announced first the shooting and then the confirmed death of our president. Along the way, there's been this disquieting pattern of good ones who get taken from us.

Recently it was Paul Wellstone.

Obama, having to go back to the Senate, probably to seek reelection from Illinois and come back to fight another day, isn't that kind of deep loss, true. But I have the sense that he shares many of the inspirational qualities which, over the course of my voting lifetime, didn't get a chance at full fruition.

On top of that, Hillary had a year since Howard ("the baby seal clubber") Wolfson tested the waters on what is now her weakest position. She didn't think those four swaggering war mongers had decided on war for any reason that could stick, back in Crawford that summer of 2002?

If her campaign goes down to defeat, most likely it will be because of the decision to have a good come back line to Republican swift boat type attacks on her vote to authorize preemptive warfare. Nobody expected Dubbya to actually go to war doesn't fly nearly as well with the Democrats, it will have turned out.

If, ultimately, that's what did her in, the decision to let a handler call that shot will more than likely be the culprit. It will have been emblematic of her campaign. (Because those can-do people often can't.)

Everybody wants to know what Hillary and Barack were whispering after the debate. I don't know if my lip reading skills are worth spit, but it looked like a pact.

I thought they both agreed that whoever won, neither one would hire Bob Shrum.

Because, they nodded to each other knowingly, that would truly be the definition of blowin' it.

Next week: What It Takes to Win

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