VP Hillary

I've been an Obama supporter for some time now. No he's not a "messiah", he does pander like the rest of them, and I'm super-leery of any taint that comes from his association with the Illinois political sewer. An Obama administration's certainly not going to be "Camelot" (absolutely impossible in the post-Bush mess we find ourselves in in any case). Doc Searls recently captured why I'm for Obama as well as anything I've read recently.

But I'm not posting this to talk about why I'm for Barack. That's water under the bridge since he's the likely nominee now. It seems that I now have to ponder the idea of an Obama/Clinton ticket. Because this scenario seems very plausible to me.

I have to say that my initial gut reaction is positive, despite all the misgivings I have about Clintonian motivations, governance style and integrity. Throughout the campaign I've been impressed by Hillary's resilience and grasp of policy (when it emerges out from her pandering). And from the perspective of bringing home the victory over McCain (which I think will be a tough challenge since the tried-and-true Republican elitist smear will stick to Obama) the Barack/Hillary unity ticket sounds more effective to me than any other veep idea I've heard. Such as Jim Webb to guarantee Virginia in the (D) column come November. Or the smarmy John Edwards to capture the elusive blue-collar white male. Or Bill Richardson to get the Hispanic vote (well maybe that last one isn't too dumb considering McCain's relatively moderate stand on immigration and Obama's seeming weakness among those voters).

But a VP Hillary can certainly go a long way to salve the wounds caused by Limbaugh's "Project Chaos". And despite some alignment on my part with this critique of a recent Tom Friedman post about the need for a tough posture with Iran, I agree with Friedman's implication that a carrot-and-stick posture with Iran and other irritants is what's needed. I trust Obama to provide the carrot, but with the stick, not so much. This is another reason to like the idea of Vice President Hillary Clinton in my opinion...