To a surrounded enemy you must leave a way of escape.
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War. c.400-320 b.c.
Let me state my biases at the outset. My ideal candidate is Al Gore. My ideal ticket is Gore-Obama. I like Hillary Clinton, hated the way the country treated her as first lady, and have been disappointed in her Iraq and especially Iran votes, and disappointed in her campaign’s continuing in the face of certain defeat, and the Republican talking points she is using against Obama. I thought Bill Clinton was in many ways a disappointing president, a lousy president; but (like Churchill said about democracy), he was the worst modern president except for all the rest of them. That said, this is the way to end the primary wars and move on to victory in November.
More below the fold. Nobody is going to like this, which may mean it’s the best solution.
We are getting to the endgame, and unfortunately Senator Clinton has pushed this primary war to the brink. She absolutely cannot win. She does not have the delegates. She has won fewer states. She has fewer popular votes. Technically, if she makes a triple-bank shot and convinces enough super-delegates that Obama can’t win in November, she could essentially override the will of the majority of Democratic voters, and the results of the majority of Democratic primaries. The irony is that she would so alienate the Obama voters, particularly African-Americans that she would not only lose the General Election (thus undermining her only rationale for overriding the primary results).
But Clinton has no way out. She has the Clinton machine behind her. She has President Clinton pushing her forward. And candidly she has a lot of dedicated, earnest voters and campaign workers who would be bitterly disappointed if she lost. Women have been waiting centuries for this moment. We may say she’s the wrong woman at the wrong time, but she’s very close to being a great woman at the right time.
For Clinton to continue the campaign to the convention is a nightmare. It will eventually weaken Obama and will alienate her voters from Obama. There is only one solution. Obama must offer Clinton a means of graceful and dignified retreat: Obama must offer Clinton the Vice President slot.
I don’t think she will is necessarily the best vice-presidential candidate. And may not be the best vice-president. Maybe she can bring Arkansas to the blue column. Maybe not. But she is a formidable campaigner, and is quick to respond to attacks. Two qualities you want in a vice-presidential candidate. Plus her "experience" as first lady will balance out a perceived lack of foreign policy experience in Obama.
Obama has to approach Clinton and say, let’s end this now. You can’t win. But you can be the first woman vice-president. Clinton has to accept this graceful gesture and retreat now, to fight together. She has to seize her Al Gore moment and tell her supporters that it is time to end the campaign and come together as a party, and that she wants them to join her in making her the first woman vice-president in this country’s history, and to make Obama the first African-American president, and to insuring that the next president is someone who will end the war in Iraq, who will fix the economy, and will restore America’s place in the world.