Hillary Clinton supporters trying to rig MSNBC poll

Another blog that is demanding Barack choose Hillary is encouraging Hillary supporters to flood MSNBC's online Veepstakes poll.


MSNBC is doing an online poll. The MSNBC poll closes at noon on Monday -- we have until then to help Hillary win it. You have closed the gap from 20 points to 8 points. Please take a moment to forward this link to every Hillary supporter and friend you know and ask them to take 30 seconds to vote for Hillary. MSNBC will spend all next week talking about who wins this contest -- let's make sure its Hillary.
MSNBC VP Poll

To vote: after the page loads click the small arrow next to Hillary's name and then press submit towards the bottom right hand side.

These folks are taking a cue from Hillary's primary campaign, say or do anything to win!

MSNBC's Veepstakes poll is fashioned after tournament where potential VP nominees are paired up and participants are asked to choose between them. The last two are Senator Joe Biden and Hillary. Biden isn't necessarily my first choice but he would be a fine VP for Barack and is infinitely better than Hillary. I have voted for Biden and encourage others to do so. Don't let Hillary and her dishonest supporters railroad the VP selection process!

If you haven't already voted in the MSNBC poll, please do so!

Is Hillary’s public support of Barack sincere?

A new poll in California reinforces the message that Barack doesn’t need Hillary as his Vice-Presidential nominee. An analysis of the Field poll suggests “[a]mong Democratic voters, Hillary Clinton's presence on the ticket doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Only one in 10 say they're concerned about whether she's chosen to run as vice president.” This is a state she won easily in the primary. If this isn’t evidence the “pick Hillary or else” crowd is vocal but small, I don’t know what is.

Several pro-Clinton blogs are crowing about a supposed canvassing of superdelegates that revealed eight who committed to Barack would vote for Hillary in a roll call vote. This appears to be wishful thinking, but even if true, she’d need plenty more to switch to seriously threaten Barack’s nomination.

More than likely, this really part of a campaign to force Barack to make Hillary his “co-President” although her official title would be Vice-President. An Op-Ed in the London Guardian hit the nail on the head with the question “will Hillary and her sulking supporters successfully blackmail Obama into choosing Hillary as his running mate?” The media in this country have not really picked on the shenanigans of Hillary’s supporters nor have they focused on the glaring gap between Hillary’s sucking up to Barack in public and what is apparently going on behind the scenes. Hillary has only “suspended” her campaign. Traditionally when a candidate drops out and endorses the front runner, they release their delegates but Hillary has not done so. Suspending her campaign has also allowed standing to rise by keeping her out of the limelight. Once Hillary dropped out of the race, her negative press coverage ended and even many journalists who had been critical started singing their praise of Hillary. At the same time, Barack faced continued media exposure and had to make some tough decisions. I happen to think Barack voted correctly on the final FISA bill, others don’t but it is clear the easy vote for a Democrat was “no.” Hillary almost certainly would have voted for passage had she been the nominee but knowing the bill was going to pass and free from the burden of being the nominee she took the easy path in an attempt to burnish her credentials with progressives who opposed her and voted in the negative. Naturally, there is some second-guessing about Obama and while Hillary publicly butters up Barack, the implicit message is “hey, I’m still available.”

When is the press going to pick up on Hillary’s game?

Will Obama have any choice but Hillary?

Induced panic by Hillary’s supporters and Barack’s enemies

Several people thought to be potential Democratic Vice-Presidential candidates have dropped off the list and there is an increasing tendency in the press to suggest they will all drop off and Barack will be forced to surrender to Hillary. A post in the generally conservative RealClearPolitics cites the withdrawals of Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed and Virginians Senator Jim Webb and Senate candidate Mark Warner to suggest Barack may have no choice but to pick Hillary. The post concludes by saying “[w]ith Obama's diminishing short list, let's make a prediction: Despite the denials all around, Hillary Clinton as VP is an idea that I think has weathered the tumultuous month following her defeat. Polls show Democratic voters still like the idea and Clinton's electoral strengths certainly haven't lessened any…an Obama/Clinton ticket is very much a possibility.”

This mostly nonsense. First, of the four contenders who dropped out, only one was ever a serious VP possibility. Ted Strickland and Jack Reed looked good on paper, but as Michael Barone suggested, Strickland’s resume is very thin and he apparently judged himself to be unqualified. Reed’s military background made him attractive to a few (including yours truly) but he was not being formally vetted by the Obama campaign, rather he was a temporary media celebrity after it was announced that he was going to accompany Obama on an upcoming trip to Iraq. The reality is the low key Reed doesn’t desire the job and it was never seriously in offing. Mark Warner is already a candidate for the Senate in Virginia. He is the prohibitive favorite to win the Senate race at the moment, a race that might be much more in doubt if he suddenly wasn’t the Democratic candidate. It is doubtful the Senate Democrats want to give up what looks like a sure pickup when Obama has plenty of other choices for VP. The one who was apparently going to be vetted but dropped out was Webb. Most of the speculation suggested Webb would not have wanted his many non-politically correct statements of the past open to re-examination. Webb, who changed parties to Democrat only a few years ago, at one time suggested women had no business in the military and made statements that some took as sympathy for the Confederate cause in the Civil War.

Even these eliminations still leave Biden, Edwards, Richardson, Bayh and a host of others. Of course, Hillary is on the list but only because some of her supporters and Obama’s enemies feel she is owed it or he is stuck with her, not because she is a good choice.

About those polls

Hillary’s supporters and Obama’s enemies continually read the polls incorrectly. Many typically use the same logic as the RealClearPolitics post, basically “most Democrats want Obama to select Hillary, therefore he should” as if that observation matters. What really matters is whether selecting Hillary would help the ticket and here the evidence runs against a selection of Hillary as VP.

The latest Quinnipiac poll finds Democrats favor Hillary’s selection by a margin of 56 to 33 percent. Democrats also plan to vote for Obama over McCain by a margin of 84 to 8 percent, in short, whatever Democrats may feel about Hillary as VP, they are voting for Obama anyway. Among independent voters, who could tilt the election, Obama and McCain are running evenly and this same group opposes Hillary as VP by a margin of 50 to 35 percent and all voters oppose the selection of Hillary by 49 to 36 percent. More importantly, 28 percent of independents and 24 percent of all voters say the selection of Hillary would make them less likely to support Obama while only 18 percent of independents and 19 percent of all voters said they would be more likely to support Obama. In other words, Hillary would be a drag on the ticket.

Hagel and Reed to accompany Barack on trip. Clinton backer pushes Hillary in phone conversation with Barack

According to CNN, Senators Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel will accompany Barack on his upcoming trip to Iraq. A lot of buzz surrounded the inclusion of Hagel, who is a renegade Republican on the Iraq War. Could he be a VP choice? While he’d be better than Hillary, he remains a conventional Republican on many issues. It would be a bold move by Obama to select him but it may rile the base. The low-key Reed, on the other hand, might be just the ticket (no pun intended). He has a military background (he served as an airborne infantry officer in the army) and was against the fiasco in Iraq from the start.

A number of news reports have cited a Los Angeles Times article in which Barack said he was considering Hillary as a running mate. The claim apparently comes from Democratic donor and Hillary backer Jill Iscol. Obama contacted her as part his outreach to Clinton backers and she took the opportunity to push for Hillary as VP. According to Iscol, Obama responded by saying Hillary was on his list of possible choices but Bill Clinton “complicated” matters. According to the London Telegraph, Bill Clinton is not willing to have the contributions to his presidential library scrutinized by Obama’s vetters while other potential selections are undergoing rigorous scrutiny. If true, that is equivalent of Bill giving Barack the finger.

Iscol was noncommittal of making a donation to Obama, apparently in the hope that will encourage him to choose Hillary. This smacks of blackmail and her indiscretion in making the discussion public has to further send a shiver down Obama’s spine about the Clintons and their supporters. The fact that Clinton donors are holding back on giving money to Barack makes one wonder if the Clintons’ commentary regarding Obama to their supporters in private differs from Hillary’s supportive public commentary.

Why not Hillary?

Since Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee there has been unprecedented campaign to force him to choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate. I believe choosing Hillary would be big mistake especially in light of this effort to force his hand.

The Clintons have their good points. While I have problems with Bill’s ethics, I think his time as President was good for the United States and while I don’t think he deserves all (or even most of) the credit for the peace and prosperity that characterized the period from 1993 to 2000, he certainly deserves some. He made what I consider to be sound policy decisions. As for Hillary, I agree with her stated positions on many issues. However, none of this means she would be a good selection for Obama as his running mate. The reasons for not choosing her are clear.

Fundamentally, there are several factors for any nominee to consider when selecting a Vice-Presidential candidate. Obviously, the Presidential nominee would want to choose someone could assume the job of President but realistically, many potential Vice-Presidential nominees meet that criteria. The two more fundamental questions are 1) Does the Vice-Presidential pick increase the ticket’s chances of winning the general election and 2) Would that pick be a good fit in the future Administration?

As nears as I can tell Hillary is a wash on question 1. Several polls have shown Democrats favor putting Hillary on the ticket but most of them are likely to vote for the Democratic ticket anyway. More telling are polls of all voters and the most recent I could find suggested Obama-Clinton doesn’t poll much differently than Obama by himself.

On question 2, Hillary is complete flop. Vice-Presidents are supposed to be loyal to the President above all else and the Clintons have never played second fiddle to anyone, it is hard to imagine them starting now, especially to a man Hillary suggested was unprepared to be President. More than likely, the Clintons envision Hillary as Vice-President with greatly expanded powers and a portfolio for Bill as well; In effect, a tri-Presidency with Obama as the odd man out. That would be a disaster as this nation doesn’t need three chief executives.

Finally, there are the Clintons themselves. It might be tempting to take Hillary’s recent warm praise of Obama at face value but the problem is, how would one know? While even the most honest politicians fib a bit, Hillary and Bill have a record of mendacity that puts them pretty low in the trust scale. If someone isn’t accustomed the getting shot at, they tend to have a pretty good memory of when they did. It is hard to see Hillary’s repeated claim about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire as anything but a brazen lie. Also, because all politicians pander, pandering itself isn’t a disqualification but the shamelessness of the Hillary is amazing. There isn’t any serious Democratic policy analyst who favored cutting the gas tax and Hillary Clinton probably didn’t either. However, this spring she came out for a cut in the gas tax after having talked about the need for alternative energy and reduction in green house gases. Lower fossil fuel prices are the quickest way to make those goals harder to achieve. It would have been one thing if she called for a second stimulus package to, among other things, help mitigate the impact of higher gas prices. At least that could have been targeted to low income folks and because the recipients could spend the money on whatever they deemed necessary, the incentive to conserve would have remained. However, Hillary just couldn’t resist demanding a cut in the gas tax that would have benefited millionaire owners of Hummers, because she saw political gain. Not only was it dishonest given what she said she believed otherwise, it showed a lack of leadership and a lack of courage that Obama commendably showed on the issue.

Bill’s mendacity is well documented but perhaps he was being the honest one in this case, when he reportedly told someone Obama could kiss his behind if he expected support. All the more reason for Obama not to want a Clinton in his Administration.