Friday, June 06, 2008

Clinton-Obama Meeting Stirs VP Rumors

Rumors are spreading today as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are holding a not-so secret meeting.

So far, no one in the know has revealed what the two are discussing. However, we have New York Senator Charles Schumer, a Clinton supporter, saying she will accept the vice president’s position if it’s offered to her. No kidding and no big surprise there.

Then we have Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson saying, “She is not seeking the vice presidency, and no one speaks for her but her.” Bull. Of course she’s trying to get the position. No one can seriously believe that she isn’t.

In fact, tomorrow Clinton is expected to make her official announcement that she’s stepping out of the race and will endorse Obama. That might be a good time for the two of them to announce together that they decided to put their differences aside, forget to mention the dirty attacks on each other, and tell America that there will indeed be an Obama-Clinton ticket.

It has already been discussed how an Obama-Clinton ticket could hurt the presumed Democratic presidential nominee. But it has been mentioned that one of the key things that could help the Illinois senator is the huge amount of die-hard supporters that Clinton can give him.

Whatever experiences Hillary Clinton has, it’s her supporter base that will be more beneficial to Obama. And it’s something that he is surely considering.

Granted, Clinton has also served on many committees while as senator of New York, such as Committee on Armed Services, Committee on Budget and Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, just to name a few. And she is also a commissioner of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

So those credentials might be useful as well for Obama. However, she seemingly does not have the great number of years behind her as an elected official and just as important, Clinton does not have any experience holding an international title that would help Obama’s lack of one. He simply does not have any global leadership experience.

Yes, Obama has gone overseas as a U.S. senator and has been involved in important meetings and speeches. But he lacks experience that comes with years of being in office. Now, as mentioned before, one of the people who would be better suited to help Obama in the international department is New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Richardson can be a very attractive person to have by your side.

After all, educated voters do look at what the vice presidential nominee can bring to the table.

However, if Obama only cares about winning the race, then he might very well bring Clinton on as vice president and use her supporters only as a giant stepping stone to the White House. Once there, he can have his pick of the best political and international advisors. But it’s hard to imagine Clinton just silently sitting by the sidelines. There will be a lot of headbutting between the two until they can reach a resolve, hopefully.

And let’s pretend that they will make an announcement tomorrow about a joint union, then that gives them a big jump start in their campaign against GOP presumed nominee John McCain, who has not announced his own vice president as of yet.

With politics, you never know what’s going to happen next, but rumors do make things more interesting before anything is official.