[On the eve of Barack Obama's victory on winning the Democratic nomination] Hillary Clinton told colleagues Tuesday she would be consider joining Barack Obama as his running mate. On a conference call with other New York lawmakers, Clinton, a New York senator, said she was willing to become Obama’s vice presidential nominee…Advisers for Clinton are also indicating that the former first lady is withholding a formal departure from the race partly to use her remaining leverage to press for a spot on the ticket. They said Clinton has made a strategic decision to not formally end her campaign, giving her room to negotiate with Obama on various matters including a possible vice presidential nomination for her.
Clinton’s vice presidential remarks came in response to a question from Democratic Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who said she believed the best way for Obama to win key voting blocs, including Hispanics, would be for him to choose Clinton as his running mate…Clinton said if Obama were to ask her to be on the ticket, she would be interested. “I am open to it,” Clinton replied…Aides to the Illinois senator said he and Clinton had not spoken about the prospects of her joining the ticket.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24953561/
The speech tonight was a remarkable one for a candidate who has lost the nomination, though not remarkable for a Clinton. It was an assertion that she had won the nomination and a refusal to concede anything to her opponent. Classless, graceless, shameless, relentless. Pure Clinton.
Her narcissism requires that she deprive her opponent of a night, or a second, of gratification or attention. And she has now won, in her Bush-like version of reality, 18 million votes. Her invitation for her supporters to email their suggestions to her website is pure theater, a way of keeping herself in the spotlight and maneuvering her delegates to demand a second spot on the ticket. The way she is now doing this - by an implicit threat, backed by McCain, to claim that Obama is an illegitimate nominee if she does not get her way - is designed to humiliate the nominee sufficiently to wound him enough to lose the election.
Either way, she is clearly intent on getting Obama defeated this fall if she is not offered the vice-presidency. And if she gets the veep nod, the way she has gotten it will allow her to argue that a November loss was not her loss. It was his. And she will run again in 2012. She will not go away. The Clintons will never go away. And they will do all they can to cripple any Democrat who tries to replace them. In the tent or out of it, it is always about them. And they are no longer rivals to Obama; they are threats.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/06/the-clintons-th.html
Lots of Democrats love Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yet plenty of Republicans, conservatives and all-important independents can’t stand her, suggesting possible pitfalls for Barack Obama should he make her his vice presidential running mate. The intense dislike for Clinton suggests that besides support from women and others she could bring to the ticket, she might make it harder for Obama to win over some independents, a pivotal swing group in the November election against Republican John McCain. It also means she might push some Republicans and conservatives to vote against the Democrats — or donate money to the GOP — who might otherwise lack motivation to do so because of tepid feelings toward McCain.
A substantial 32 percent of independents strongly dislike Clinton, 10 points more than they say so about Obama, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll conducted over the last several months. Independents, a group that both Obama and McCain won during their party primaries this year, comprised a quarter of voters in the 2004 election and have been closely contested in every presidential election since 1992. In addition, 67 percent of Republicans have very unfavorable views of Clinton, 24 percentage points more than feel that way about Obama. Among conservatives the spread is similar — 58 percent say they feel very negatively about her, 18 points more than they say so about Obama.
Few conservatives and Republicans are going to vote under any circumstances for Obama, who already has advisers culling possible running mates. But both parties will be trying to discern whether putting Clinton on the ticket might in some ways backfire. “I don’t think I’d like the idea of Hillary Clinton attached to anything,” said Kym Williams, 33, of Knoxville, Tenn., a Republican who’s not decided how to vote in November. “I’m not for a lot of the things she stands for.” Other groups with significantly stronger negative feelings about Clinton than Obama include whites under age 30, male college graduates, white men and whites earning at least $100,000 a year.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080610/NEWS02/806100339/1007
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