Hillary should do everything she can to avoid the Obama Campaign and being asked to be VP.

and the so called media? words cannot express my dislike and disgust for them. who knew i'd be watching faux as a preference.

/snark.

Clinton/Obama has a shot.

Obama/Clinton does not.

Clinton/Clark is a landslide.

We ran out of yard signs two weeks ago, but one of those out of state volunteers brought in a bunch left over from that campaign.  After the election here, I plan to gather all our signs up and take them over to Kentucky.  We have a really diverse group of volunteers, too - union folks, men, women, high school kids, and senior citizens.  Hillary also has really solidified some enthusiastic support among working class men.  Seriously: truckers and DOH guys, contractors and landscaping folks, we get alot of enthusiastic support from them.

How does that translate if she's VP?  I just don't know.  Many older Democrats in WV - yellow-dog Democrats, folks who have never voted for a Republican - refuse to support Obama.  I don't think that her coattails as VP would be strong enough to solidify them in WV, and as a WVian that really concerns me: I don't want our state to turn solidly red in presidential politics.  

The Obama kids around here aren't bothering to campaign much; they are demoralized, as he has no chance of winning the state.  Heck, HRC's folks are sad that she probably won't win the nomination, but we're out there working really hard.  

I would vote for HRC if she is at the top of the ticket but if she's VP, no way.  

I like Jeralyn's comments about letting the process take its course, if Obama is the nominee let him find the best running mate for his campaign.

Here is another question...after all the horrible things he and his supporters said about HER (dishonest, poll tested, scheming) how can THEY justify picking her.

If Senator Obama were to choose Senator Clinton as his running mate, that act would show his followers that the hatred towards Senator Clinton which had previously been cultivated very carefully was no longer valid. This would tend to sow confusion and doubt among the faithful, as it would then allow them to question all the other beliefs so crucial to the movement, e.g., experience isn't really important, people who don't vote for Obama are racists, etc. This could very well lead to the collapse of the entire movement, situated as it is in a virtual tie with Senator Clinton for the hearts and minds of the Democratic party.

The larger problem that I see is that, having once established Senator Clinton as the anti-Christ, the Obama camp is going to have a hard time saying they really meant that Senator McCain, not Senator Clinton, is the embodiment of all evil.

I mean more than half the Obama folks don't want it.

1 in 5 Clinton supporters feel so stongly about it as to reject it.

We can look at the same numbers and come to different conclusions, I guess.

As it has been pointed out repeatedly, there are certain groups in the Clinton camp who have been offended by the Obama campaign, and if your goal is to bring them back into the party, making Clinton VP isn't going to work and is only likely to tick them off more as it will be perceived as a token gesture by an incompetent we don't like. Women who put their hopes and dreams of a woman president will see this as the ultimate example of the man getting the promotion while the woman does all the work.  

It simply won't work with the people it's designed to work with.

Of the other folks, they'll vote for Obama anyway without Clinton on the ticket, and if you can win the General Election with those folks, then why not just go ahead and do it?

Again!

x = number of Clinton supporters who will vote for Obama regardless of his running mate.

y = number of Clinton supporters who will vote for Obama if he chooses Clinton as his running mate.

y - x = n

My opinion is "n" is a very low number.  

Her career ending as a token gesture made by an incompetent man is simply not going to work with the people who care about this enough to leave the party, anyway.

What do I base this on? People like my parents and their friends who are very middle of the road - they love Clinton and will vote for her as top of the ticket, otherwise they are for McCain. They don't especially care who is VP...

I was in a taxi the other day discussing my Clinton phone banking plans with my partner, who tepidly supports Obama, and the cab-driver turned and asked me, are you volunteering for Hillary? And I said yes I am! And he said I just love her, my wife and I, we just love her. And I was like oh, me too, and we gushed about Clinton for a few minutes and bad mouthed the biased media. And then he said, with no prompting from me, if it's not her, I won't be voting this year. I just feel too angry. And my partner said, well, what if she is VP? And he thought about it for a minute and he shook his head and said "No, it just hurts too much for me and my wife, she didn't deserve to be treated this way." My partner was surprised, but I think for the first time he actually understood that I am not some crazy Clinton supporter on the fringe, but that many of us really do feel personally offended by the way she has been treated and by the way all of her accomplishments have been belitted by the Obama campaign and the media in a way that no man's accomplishments would.

So, the WV vote can also be viewed as a referendum on the press, which has declared the race over. And it's almost a controlled experiment, since Obama did not deign to campaign i the state, no doubt in the interests of Unity. It's Hillary versus Conventional Wisdom.

As for the large percentage of Clinton supporters who enthusiastically support an Obama/Clinton ticket - I am casting a jaundiced eye at those numbers.  If Gallup was reporting enthusiasm for a Clinton/Obama ticket, that would be believable, but Obama/Clinton?  Not so much.  It's like Obama is the kid with a learner's permit and she is the more experienced, fully licensed driver who gets to ride shotgun while he learns to drive.  Ugh.  Thanks, but where this country is and where it needs to go is not a job I want to hand over to a student driver.

First and foremost it helps unify the party and thereby helps the Dems win the White House in November. VP selections are generally chosen as a "do no harm" measure. Hillary Clinton may be the first VP candidate that actually garners votes for the ticket that otherwise might slip away.

The second reason is interconnected, less factual,  and more emotional. We have just had a woman come closer than ever to the White House. As of now there are no other female candidates in the same league. Sometimes when a step is there you take it, even if its not where you were aiming.

Obama can't win working class whites. He comes off as too elitist and effette.

Horse manure.

Assisting concern trolls trash the certain Democratic nominee is silly and self-defeating. I am a Yellow Dog Democrat and you people better get your mind right about winning.

I voted for Hillary, she lost, and I got over it.

It was liberating to not feel the need to vote for Obama because we're both black. I did so because I was concerned if he couldn't beat her, he couldn't beat them. Well guess what.

One thing remains above all else: Obama's a Democrat and McCain is not. Any Democrat who even hints that they won't support our nominee after eight years of this crap is worse than a fool.

You know my feelings on the issue, so I won't go further.

Because there are no facts, there is no truth, Just data to be manipulated

Because there are no facts, there is no truth, Just data to be manipulated

If he loses as bad as he is expected to why does he get nearly 40% of the delegates?

Maybe he won't lose by as much as you expect and the delegates are awarded proportionally.

In any case, Hillary cannot catch Obama in delegate count. Period. She screwed up, I wish she hadn't but then the primary is a test of political ability. Sometimes you just get beat.

Meanwhile, I noticed you didn't sign off with a note to Republicans that we will be knocking their block off in November.

Man or woman as the nominee we are better than the Republicans on every measure that counts.

We are not the torture party.

We are not the gay bashing party.

We are not the destroy the environment party.

We are not the party of anti-science and religious intolerance.

How could you possibly believe that Hillary places more importance on her own political future than she does on the climatic ruination of our planet? Is that really the kind of person you want to be President of the United States? You've already had one just like that, for he past 8 years.

If Obama loses she will be dead.

If Obama wins she will be dead.

But that's me speaking like any rational black would do, not a more charitable Obama.

Dismissing the results in WV means that you accept that there is no merit-based reason for a voter to prefer Clinton to Obama.

If Hillary's the nominee, Barack will be the running mate. If Barack's the nominee, Hillary will be the running mate. That's my answer

The only way this unity ticket comes about is if both camps are compelled to do so because 2-3 months or so of party healing efforts haven't worked.

In any case, Obama isn't obliged to make any decisions in May, nor should he or we take too much to heart the meaningless polls right now about unity tickets.  Makes for some interesting discussion though.

I am not at all opposed to a Unity ticket, I do wonder if this unity matters to the general election voters as much as it does to Democratic primary voters.  I wonder if these two candidates would be a good enough team in terms of general electorate appeal to merge their campaigns.  Kerry-Edwards was a huge disappointment because the Kerry camp muzzled Edwards and didn't take advantage of him.  

Would Obama take Clinton begrudgingly and end up undermining his ticket as a result?  I ask this question because I haven't seen much flexibility from the Obama camp.  They would need to make room for Senator Clinton - not to mention a former president on the inside of their campaign and I wonder if they have the ability/desire to do that.  Then there is Teddy Kennedy's and Kerry's influence on the Obama camp which seems to be pretty intense and it is clear that they picked Obama in part because they were trying to put up a roadblock for the Clinton machine.

I don't know.  

The best way to make this happen is to have both Obama and Clinton on the ticket and have the Obama and the Clinton families make a public show of unity and work their magic on their respective most enthusiastic and loyal constituencies.

It would lead to a huge landslide, and heal divides that have been existent in the party back as far as I can remember, racial, ethnic, working-class/latte elite/"creative" class, and regional divides.

Now that would be truly transformational.

To get there, I would certainly be happy to see Clinton take the VP spot.

We're a little busy now sorting out a small family dispute which should be finished up in about six weeks or so.