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From The Times

June 5, 2008

Choice of a No 2 must end the Clinton era, not start a new one

Gerard Baker, US Editor: Commentary

Barack Obama’s victory in the race for the Democratic nomination has been hailed widely as the end of a 220-year opening chapter in American history.

But for now history will have to wait. The excitement in the Obama camp that has attended the triumph of the first black man to win the presidential nomination of a political party gives way immediately to the more familiar and prosaic responsibilities of a newly minted candidate.

Two tasks require Senator Obama’s urgent attention. The first is to unite his party and deal graciously and generously with his defeated opponent. The second is to pick a candidate for the vice-presidency, a decision freighted with all kinds of political and governing exigencies.

In the past, after long and occasionally divisive primary campaigns, a favoured solution to both these challenges has been for the winner to pick the losing candidate as the number two on the ticket. Ronald Reagan did it with George Bush Sr in 1980. John Kerry did it with John Edwards in 2004.

In 2008 there are particularly good reasons, at least in the minds of her supporters, why Senator Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

The Democratic race was so close that the two candidates finished in what was in effect a tie. She demonstrated, especially in the later stages of the campaign, a capacity to appeal to white working-class voters that Senator Obama sorely lacks.

Unfortunately for Senator Clinton, this enthusiasm is not shared by Mr Obama’s closest advisers. They have long believed that to choose her would undercut the Obama message of change, a new start in the nation’s history. They have wondered whether they could possibly work with a candidate who has expressed so many doubts about Senator Obama’s electability and suitability for the presidency.

Above all, they pale at the thought of Mrs Clinton and her husband constructing a kind of Machiavellian Trinity over the next four years: an alternative presidency, a Restoration and a permanent campaign – all from inside their own White House.

Those doubts were cemented on Tuesday by the extraordinary performance that Mrs Clinton turned in on the final primary night of the season.

There was angry and slightly bewildered reaction in the Obama campaign to her remarkable nonconcession speech in New York. On the night that the Democratic party had finally, formally picked the first black candidate in history, Senator Clinton chose to speak as though she had in fact won the race.

This startling spectacle of Clinton defiance has probably only made it harder for Senator Obama to offer her the vice-presidential slot.

Those who know him say that nothing is more likely to make him reject his opponent’s demands than this suggestion that it is hers by entitlement. He would look weak and slightly timorous, they say, by picking her. If Senator Obama’s audacious campaign for the presidency has demonstrated anything in the past year it is a supreme self-confidence and belief in his own capabilities.

He is much more likely, they say, to choose as his running-mate somebody who emphasises, rather than detracts from, his own message.

Some have urged him to pick a partner who would balance his youth, inexperience and lack of foreign policy credentials. If he were to go down this route he might opt for someone such as former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, a foreign policy veteran. But aides say he would prefer someone who helps to amplify his message of change, or a candidate who would actually be of practical use in helping him to govern the country after next January.

In the first camp are men such as Tim Kaine, the Governor of Virginia, an early Obama supporter and a successful Democrat in a Republican state that could be up for grabs in November. For similar reasons, Jim Webb, the Virginia senator is mentioned; also relatively young, a moderate on most issues, though passionately against the Iraq war. Kathleen Sebelius, the popular Governor of Kansas, is another possibility.

There are more intriguing names, too: Michael Bloomberg, the Republican-turned-independent Mayor of New York; or Chuck Hagel, the independent-minded Republican Senator from Nebraska.

If he were to opt for someone on the basis of their ability to help him to govern, he could choose Joe Biden, one of the senior Democrats in the Senate, who would be a valuable ally in pushing an Obama agenda through Congress.

What is certain is that Senator Obama urgently wants his victory this week to mark the end of the Clinton era. It will be an early test of his strength and resilience if he can resist the pressure from powerful forces to prolong it.

If it's true that Obama himself incorrectly claims he is black, I would have nothing to do with the man.

As a mixed race person, I am proud of both sides of my heritage. I would never deny either half.

Anybody who does, about themselves, or others, has something seriously wrong in their head.

nb, London, United Kingdom

Experience? Tax policies? Maybe, but...a Republican acquaintance sent an email with some 7 or 8 Obama family pictures...laden with racist and xenophobic comments.

This campaign could very well make "Willie Horton" look like a picnic.

Gene Touchet, Palm Springs, USA

Thank you for this brilliant article.

The future of humanity is at a critical stage. We can no longer sit on the sideline anymore. It is interesting to note that the Mayan calendar do not go past 2012. This election is critical to our future/destiny.

WE are the ones we have been waiting for!

Samy, Toronto, Canada

His nomination is a giant leap in race relations. It makes anyone of good will proud.
Maria, Charleston, USA

A mixed race man becoming head of a political party, that's all.

If a single person considers voting for him because of his race, then the entire argument against racism collapses.

Helen E., London, United Kingdom

OK, to use many of your logic, since being 50% something, and even "a single drop" makes you wholly something, I say:

Obama - yet another White President! Wowee!!

Obama, what an example to white people everywhere!
His English white mother must be so proud. What an shining white leader!

CR, London, United Kingdom

Barack Obama will make history as the first Hawaiian president. What many people on the mainland US fail to understand is that before anything else, he is Hawaiian. The hapa culture of Hawaii permeates who he is

Christopher C NC, Clyde, US

Cont'd

Obama is black because he looks black, and because of America's peculiar way of interpreting race--as a way to protect white males from their sexual explotiation of black females--deems that he is black. His nomination is a giant leap in race relations. It makes anyone of good will proud.

Maria, Charleston, USA

James from London, you do not understand how race has historically worked in America. Because of the "one drop rule", anyone who has one drop of African blood is not considered mixed or white, but black, even if he appears white. There is a whole genre of literature devoted to the "tragic mulatto".

Maria, Charleston, USA

It's an accepted convention in the US that persons of mixed race can be thought of as black: Booker T. Washington, a famous black author and educator, had a white father.
The rest of the Anglophone world needn't and doesn't slavishly follow every last convention of the mother country. Deal with it.

Daniel, Cambridge, MA,

I am a Hillary Clinton supporter for practical reasons.
One, she is the one in our country who can fix our broken healthcare system Two, she brings a liberal-reality view of exactly HOW to fix government, not pie in the sky stuff.

Donna Davidson, Punta Gorda, United States

It's obsurd to find out that Hilary Clinton has thrown in the towel. My entire family was hoping for her winning considering how helpful she was throughout her husband's presidential years.

I suppose there will be another horrible 4 years ahead of us. May God help us all.

ari, mcallen, USA

The more I read "Obama is black", the more I think the world is completely full of idiots.

2 + 3 = 5. It doesn't equal 2, nor does it equal 3.

Black + white = mixed race, it doesn't equal black, or white.

What is the hangup so many of you have that feels the need to pretend he's black? Crazy!

James, London, United Kingdom

It is irrelevant whether the US has a "one drop "rule"" dating from years ago, or whether lots of people think he's black, or whether the US, that claims to use our beautiful language, hasn't been able to find the term "mixed race" in all these years.

The FACT is he's not black, he's mixed race.

Laura Roberts, London, United Kingdom

The more I read the florid words of Andrew Sullivan's numerous worships at the shrine of Obama, I am reminded of the words of Norman Mailer.To paraphrase and re-iterate -'All you need is to put fifteen adjectives in front of a noun,to disguise the fact you are talking about nothing at all'
Exactly

Prudence Eely Bond McGuire, London, England, UK.

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26131.html

enough said....

Neil Turner

Neil Turner, London, UK

The sound bites from Hillary campaingn would bury OBAMA when McCain gets going it would be the first stupid thing Obama ever did, is to include Hillary it would put McCain in the white house and in comes Hillary in 2012, because the country would be faced with the worst RECESSION IN HISTORY.

Andria Ashley, Cambridge, UK

Slick Hilly
She will keep her delegates and only "suspend" her campaign.That alone makes it impossible for Obama to even consider picking her. She is challeging him and he will win this one too. No tears will help her this time around."Want, want, want....".

Casimir Nystrand, Stockholm, Sweden

Hillary, throughout the primary race, claimed 35 years of experience, even taking credit for what her husband achieved! What is to stop her challenging Obama in 2012, were she to be his VP now, by claiming all the credit for his achievements? Leopards don't change their spots. NO NO NO to HRC as VP!

Jimmy C, Letchworth Garden City, UK

A selfish showing by "Billary" last week. Sadly her greed won't allow her to act constructively. Obama, should he pick her, gets 2 Clintons for the price of 1!
If it's not really about her blind ambition, as we all fear, but a Dem president she needs to demonstrate unqualified support for Obama.

Jonathan M Wogel, Dubai, UAE

Having read all the hatred for the Clintons, having seem the Black people follow Obama like sheep, having read about all the new registered Democrats that Obama will bring into the party it is hard to believe the results of the primaries. No swing states, no rust belt. no sun belt no mexican support

Andrew G O'Donnell, Sacramento,, USA/CA

Actually, a very strong reason to deter Barrack from selecting Hillary will be his domestic situation. Obama's wife has developed an instinctive womanly hatred for this competitor, fuelled additionally by jealousy that Hillary didn't settle for just being a powerful man's wife as she did.

Jeremiah, Mumbai, India

Yet again a brilliant analysis, Andrew Sullivan! Only marred by the ceaseless chatter below it about who will be Obama's VP. Only this time, Andrew, you have excelled yourself. You are another Robert Fisk.

Simon, London, UK

12 Reasons Why Hillary Will Not be VP (Part 1)

1. Bill. A loose cannon on the campaign trail and a pain in the butt around the White House.

2. Independents and Obamacans-- Fuming, frustrated feminists will get over it by November, as Hillary herself does and leads them to do.