Dr. J.'s Commentary: Hillary for Veep

So a talented Obama staffer called Hillary Clinton a "monster" and off the campaign she went. The Clinton camp must have breathed a huge sigh of relief not to have to deal with the brilliance of Harvard Professor Samantha Power, an unpaid aide, any more. Well I guess it's a good thing I don't work for the Obama campaign -- for what I am about to say about Hillary in this Commentary would surely have me bumped as well. No, not monster, but Vice President. How could saying that get an Obama staffer bumped? Read on.

Clinton is clearly the Center-Rightist Democratic Leadership Council's candidate in this race. No surprise there. What is a surprise to me is that Barack Obama is not part of a DLC "entry" (that's Standard-Bred horseracing lingo for two horses from the same owner going in the same race and a bet on one means a bet on both). Back in December (The Political Junkies.net, Column No. 172, 12-5-07, "The Presidential Election, 2008: Democratic Considerations"), I thought they were. But no longer. Obama is clearly cut from a different cloth. In U.S. terms, he is clearly center-left. And that is why Clinton and the DLC are so determined to stop him. For he would end the domination of the Democratic Party by its right wing that began with the establishment of the DLC back in the 1980s, with Bill Clinton being a former DLC President.

Everyone knows that Hillary thought she would coast to the nomination. She then thought that somehow she even might be able to win the Presidency, even given her astronomical negatives. If she did, she would very likely continue the fairly cozy "when push comes to shove" relationship that the Democrats have had in all but rhetoric with the Republicans since she and her husband totally mismanaged the Clinton Health Plan launch (I saw the mismanagement from the inside on that one) and lost the Congress to the Republicans in 1994. Obama is a different story. He wants "to bring the country together," but not with pallid compromises. He would present policies as "we are all for this, aren't we? Makes sense doesn't it? How could anyone possibly be against it? Well gee, I guess that anyone who is against A, B, or C really doesn't have the interests of the vast majority of the American people at heart, now do they?" He knows who the enemy is. Very dangerous stuff. If Obama wins the Presidency, the DLC is dead.

So now it comes to pass that Clinton knows that she cannot win the Democratic nomination unless she can do two things. One is to manage to break the party rules, to which her campaign had agreed, and get the Florida and Michigan delegations seated. How about that? The biggest single evil of CheneyBush is that they have consistently refused to abide by the Rule of Law, whether in the Constitution or anywhere else. And Clinton wants to get the Democratic nomination by flouting the rule of law too. If she were to be able to do that, she would, of course, continue the tradition of flouting of the rule of law followed by every occupant of the Oval Office since Reagan (including her husband -- see the Balkans War) whose "distinguished" ranks she wishes to join. The other thing she would need to do is to keep a hold of enough superdelegates so that they could override the preferences of the majority of the voters in the Democratic primaries and caucuses. The super-delegate system was originally set up following the insurgent nomination of George McGovern in 1972 to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. But she would need both. So what to do if she cannot manage them?

Well, what about the party realignment that folks have been taking about for quite some time? The mainstream Republicans, James Baker (representing a significant piece of the oil patch, among other sectors), George H.W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft, many Wall-Streeters, et al have much in common in terms of policy with the Clintonite/DLC center-right Democrats. George W. Bush has hardly performed like Baker thought he would when Baker managed to reduce the 2000 election margin to one vote. The Baker/HW Bush Republican wing would love to rid themselves of the Christian Right/Neocon alliance, lead by W ironically enough, which has brought them such pain.

If Jim Baker, a foe of the Christian Fundamentalists and now clearly an HW man, not a W man (see the Iraq Study Group Report), representing the solid Republican Power Elite, is really pulling the strings, a realignment could happen right before our eyes, with the very pliable Gentleman Johnny McCain as their candidate. Baker's thinking on many issues is very close to that of the DLC. He was even ahead of them on the necessity of getting out of Iraq.

Given her recent statements about McCain's great foreign policy leadership abilities (apparently those honed in his five years as a POW in Vietnam, for he has had none since), and running against Obama in tandem with McCain, one must ask, is Hillary Clinton now campaigning for Veep on the McCain ticket, a ticket which could win and could place her in the Oval Office in four years or less?

Yes indeed, that's the Vice-Presidential nomination for Hillary I am speculating about. And if I were an Obama staffer, I would surely have to get bounced for suggesting it out loud. Indeed, both the DLC and the mainstream Republican wing lead by Jim Baker just might go to this length to prevent any real foreign or domestic reforms in the U.S. from occurring. And so might Hillary, just like her husband obviously interested in power for its own sake more than anything else.

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY), a weekly Contributing Author for the Web zine The Political Junkies.net; a Special Contributing Editor for Cyrano's Journal Online; and an invited contributor to the Web log The Daily Scare.

Technorati Tags: Steven Jonas 2008 race Barack Obama Hillary Clinton John McCain vice president DLC