Machiavelli Be Damned
You have to hand it to the Clintons, they are diabolically clever. Having realized that the mathematical possibility of winning the nomination outright are nil, they have apparently decided that the cost of the presidency is holding their nose and putting Obama on the ticket: as the vice president. This stratagem leverages the Democratic throng clamoring for a "Dream Ticket"--with Clinton on top of the ticket, of course.
Never mind that he has won the most delegates and the math favors him. Obama will be the bad guy if he doesn't embrace the "compromise" that resolves the party's conundrum. This is an exquisite variation of the triangulation the Clintons are infamous for, although I'm sure to Obama right now it feels more like strangulation.
For the Clintons, what does it matter? With a "two fer", the vice president is essentially irrelevant to their presidency anyway. As Maureen Dowd notes:
If he thinks Hillary has cut him down to size lately, he’d better imagine what his life would be like as the Clintons’ vice president
Machiavelli has nothing on the Clintons. They didn't learn from him, he foresaw them.
The irony is it is precisely this sort of political ruthless cleverness that one side believes is absolutely necessary to confront a hostile world, whereas the other side proclaims a better world can be forged. Which is right?
That is the underlying philosophical question of the election, meaning we will be deciding whether we Americans at the beginning of the millennium believe our cup is half fool or morally empty.
NOTE: I know this post has nothing to do with baseball from your perspective, but it does from mine. The irony is I started blogging about baseball because I knew this would be the election of a lifetime and figured I would only get myself into trouble blogging about politics. Who knew?
Actually, my interest in history and politics has always been offset by my passion for baseball. At times when I became so misanthropic from my study of history or the shenanigans of politics, I turned to baseball for refuge. I must confess to being somewhat alarmed that because of blogging they are now becoming intertwined. I have been paying close attention for over a year and a half now, and it has finally reached the point I have to write about politics as a matter of therapy. I can always rationalize they started this when Congress started holding hearings on baseball.
You can find all my political and historical writings at New World Wanderings, the natural evolution of my defunct project, The Jamestown Site. Feel free to drop by and comment, and be sure and leave your blog url when you do!
You know.. I was thinking about that all day. I'm admittedly an avid Obama fan and supporter. I would not settle for his being number 2. And I suspect Clinton would not settle for number 2, which is why she's bringing this up before being forced into the position. We'll have to see how this plays out. Because if Clinton pulls it off, I just may take my vote away.
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They aren't going to have a choice but to run together in some permutation. Neither is going to have the magic number of delegates and both will have a legitimate claim to the nomination. And Hillary IS winning the big states. Make no mistake about it, Hillary would absolutely accept the V.P. slot. She's only 60 and would be young enough to run in eight years time. The shortest path the the presidency is the vice presidency. (Or being named Bush or Clinton.)
While we're on politics, I've always had a revulsion to Eliot Spitzer. I'm a registered, right leaning democrat who has no qualms about voting for republicans, but of the 70% of the NYS voting public who voted for Spitzer, I was NOT one of them. I couldn't pick John Faso out of a police lineup if I had to; wouldn't know where he stands on any issue whatsoever; but he had one major qualification---he WASN'T Eliot Spitzer. And I voted for Faso knowing he was going to lose. This whole thing seems strangely appropriate to end a career that Spitzer bullied, purchased and threatened his way into through his well-connected father and overt, preachy and self-righteous arrogance. I couldn't care less if a guy goes with call girls---none of my business---but in this case, good riddance. (If he's not too arrogant to try and weasel his way into staying as governor; and don't underestimate him in that regard.)
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What's comical about the whole thing is that the only real requirement of the vice president is that he be somebody who could take over if needed...but the Clintons keep saying Obama's ill equipped to lead, which would mean he's ill equipped to be VP. Unless, shock of shocks, the Clintons are simply full of it.
I vote option B.
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Excellent Entry Michael!!
-Chris
The Ultimate Baseball Collector
http://ultimatebaseballcollector.mlblogs.com
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