Is Hillary Willing Her Way Onto The Ticket?

Over at The Current, I make the outline of an argument for an Obama-Clinton Democratic ticket.

Many of my readers are rapid Obama or Clinton partisans, and so the very mention of the idea probably strikes them -- you -- as absurd. But if you can somehow separate your feelings of disgust from your brains just a bit and think it through, the premise not only holds, but the idea really does make sense. Go through the categories: politics, demographics, themes, governance -- it works. As my colleague Ron Brownstein has pointed out, they are enormously complimentary figures.

I deliberately do not address the thorny issues of, say, how Obama would surrender his ego to put Clinton on the ticket, or how Clinton would surrender her presidential ambition to join the ticket, or what Bill Clinton would do, or what closet he might have to be placed in order for this to work, but I have the feeling that smarter people than I will shortly be sorting these things out.

That's because the longer Hillary Clinton stays in this race, the more inevitable it is that she, by force of will, earns a spot on the ticket. Obama cannot ignore her demographic coalition, her breadth and depth of the support, the energy that she generates, just as Hillary surely cannot ignore -- would not ignore -- everything that Obama has come to stand for and has accomplished.

Anyway, evidence that Hillary Clinton is willing to consider this option is already available: she said as much this morning on CBS's The Early Show. Obama was asked to respond to the question, and here was his response, according to CBS News reporter Maria Gavrilovic:

"You know we are just focused on winning this nomination. That’s my focus. And you know I’ve said before I respect Senator Clinton as a public servant, ah - she’s a tenacious opponent. I think it is very premature to start talking about a joint ticket."