“Si, se puede! Yes, we can!”
Tuesday night, after the final primaries of the 2008 election, Barack Obama gathered enough delegates to capture the Democratic nomination. Later in the day on Wednesday, Hillary announced her plans to officially drop out of the race this weekend.
While many Democrats are still hopeful that a potential “dream ticket” might result with Hillary as the VP candidate, I’m seeing this as being increasingly unlikely.
First of all, Obama learned of Hillary’s intentions of dropping out of the race from the media. He even called her twice on Tuesday evening but only received her voicemail. In order for an Obama-Clinton ticket to work, the candidates need to at least talk to one another on key issues; this is an apparent road block for the two candidates.
The other reason is that even though Hillary will be throwing her support to Obama, they are ideologically different and have had different track records through the campaign season. As a proud Kansan, I would suggest Governor Sebelius as a VP candidate. It is already inevitable that she will receive some sort of cabinet post (perhaps Secretary of Energy?) so this is by no means a stretch of the imagination. She and Obama also share a track record of unity, where Hillary is still viewed as a divisive candidate.
Only time will tell if Hillary receives a VP position on the Obama ticket or not. I would suspect that if neither candidate makes any significant move in the next week to make it happen, it won’t happen at all.
Either way, as Barack Obama put it on Tuesday night:
“Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.”