The Young Turks

Today's actions by the Rules and By-Laws Committee of the Democratic National Committee revealed several interesting things.  As Obama supporters, we should be thrilled that party insiders now realize the powerful wave a sentiment to get this thing over and in Obama's favor.  The net result of today is that Obama is ever so slightly further from the nomination (he now needs a mere 24 more delegates than he needed at the start of the day and Hillary is even more slightly closer to the nomination).  But the issue of Florida and Michigan are no longer an "issue" at all.  So all he has to do is get another 64 delegates total, and he is the nominee.  Period.  This is the "good news" to take from today.

The not-so-good news is that Hillary, her campaign team, and (of course) her 20 million supporters are not happy with this.  I would say the RBC did the best they could with the situation, but I'm an Obama supporter, so maybe it is a bit disingenuous of me to find it satisfactory.  Certainly "they" don't.  What now?

Well, they can continue making problems all the way up to and including Denver.  The longer this goes on, the fewer energized Democrats we have doing the jobs that must be done to win in November.  And, they might NEVER start doing those jobs.  A certain percentage might take it a bit further and either sit out the election or, worse, vote for McCain.

There's no point debating here what a horrible idea this would be for women, concerned with women's issues and other parts of the progressive agenda.  They either will or they won't.  Right now, and looking forward, it could go towards the negative quite easily.

Many articles have been written by people who, understandably, can no longer stomach the Clinton's, arguing that she adds nothing to the ticket and brings only baggage.  What new part of the country would Obama suddenly be stronger in?  What would a White House be like with Hillary sitting in on everything?  How much "fun" would it be to have Bill there as well?

These so-called problems are largely irrelevant.  We grown used to seeing a powerful Vice Presidency in the form of Dick Cheney.  But that's entirely up to the discretion of the President and, in most administrations through history, the Veep sits around with little or nothing to do and is mainly of importance only should anything happen to the President.  As Vice Presidential spouse, Bill will have no special access that Obama doesn't provide for him.  He is even more irrelevant than the Veep.  Essentially, once elected, Obama is free to treat both of them in ways he can't afford to treat them now.

But why have her on the ticket?  What does she bring to the table? 

Isn't it obvious?  She bring her 20 million highly energized supporters.  The same disgruntled people who might sit out the election (and certainly wouldn't be out canvassing for Obama) suddenly will be excitedly fighting for the first female Vice President.  They'll do as asked and they'll do it with enthusiasm and they most certainly will go to the polls in November - and not to vote for John McCain.

Obama's people need to end the rancor and do so long before Denver.  Wednesday morning would be a great time for him to contact her.  By next weekend, the national polls would show Obama/Clinton with 15-20 point lead over McCain - and he'd never recover.