I've seen now one write about it. I'm reading the quotes, and nowhere do I see Bill or Hillary blatantly say, when suggesting a joint ticket, that Obama would need to be the VP. Obama has done a great job of responding to Clinton's opening dialogs. But I've not heard him suggest offering the VP slot to Hillary.
update this diary's not getting much useful response, but if any Kossacks have any input other than Hillary-hate (we have plenty on here already, and I'm rather sick of the Obama-hate on MyDD, which I used to love), please read, and give some thoughts. I think I'm going to go have a bottle of wine, the responses have been depressing me so far.
link to MyDD post of same, for those who have read this and want to see what MyDDers say on the subject
More below the fold.
Yes, the attacks from the Clinton camp are getting worse. And yes, they cannot take the delegate lead legitimately. But the more this goes on, the more it hurts Clinton supporters and Obama supporters. Obama has done his best to take the high road, with the occasional slip (at least from some of those that are/were in his campaign), and that has reflected well. What would be more taking the high road than forgiving the Clinton camp for their attacks, and offering her the VP nomination?
And if you are more concerned about being angrily protective of Obama than protecting our party, consider, if he did offer it, and she refused, that would reflect on her more negatively than him, since he is the one winning right now.
Worst case scenario, the offer changes nothing, they never respond, hoping they can pull out the win. He can include a caveat that the offer is contingent upon her not trying to game the system by convincing superdelegates (and pledged delegates for that matter, possibly) to overrule the results of the democratically elected delegates.
And yes, the DELEGATES are democratically elected. The popular vote doesn't matter, even if it sounds harsh. It's like the Electoral College. For example, South Dakota would have a certain value in the Electoral College, whether it votes 99% Republican and 1% Democratic, the Republicans get no more value for that. The Pledged Delegates are actually distributed a bit more Democratically than that. And this fits in with much of the original arguments from the Constitutional Convention. Federalists and States Righters. Half of the people there did not want to lose having any influence just because they were from a smaller state. That's why we have the Senate.
I happen to be a Pledged Delegate for Obama (of course not yet to the National Convention, we have more local and state caucus/convention stuff to do first), and I take my representation of the will of the Democrats in my area seriously. You have no right (Hillary supporter or not) to discount me based on how many people in my area had the time, passion, anger, or other inspiration to come out and vote for Obama in my area.
But back to the original premise. The divisiveness is hurting our party. I have many friends I've worked with on past Democratic campaigns here who are Hillary supporters (and many Obama), and I will never hate them, and I hope they never hate me, but more importantly I HOPE that we will remain wonderful friends and continue to work together on many future campaigns.
Let's nip this in the bud now if it is possible!
Obama, offer the VP nomination to Hillary now, and let's see what happens!
Thoughts? Flames? Kudos? Recommends?
Let's do this!