If a former Democratic Cabinet secretary makes a prediction, we should probably treat it with more seriousness than the usual idle chitchat. So here's Robert Reich:
My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he's apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President.
So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.
Why do I say this? Because Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that's been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.
Obama and Clinton are the country's most admired man and woman, according to the latest Gallup poll, so there's that as a good reason to pair up. I'm not sure she would bring in the drifting liberal base, however. All we have to go on in Hillary's case is her primary campaign rhetoric, and she sounded more conservative than Obama. In fact, we endorsed her candidacy for just that reason, since it has been News-Sentinel policy for the last 100 years or so to endorse the most conservative candidate on the ballot, all other things being equal.
That means (from our perspective) an Obama-Clinton ticket would have the most conservative of the two a woman in the second spot. Boy, isn't that exci
Comments
I agree, but the N-S doesn't appear to endorse the most conservative candidate. It endorses the most conservative candidate who has a snowball's chance of winning. I assume you aren't backing Michele Bachmann.
We don't often have the chance to endorse in presidential primaries because it's usually all over before Indiana's May voting. 2008 was a rarity.
Is there any GOP candidate hidden in the wings that can get Democrats to vote for them?
The election isn't about Republicans, or about Democrats. It's about Independents. Whoever the Independents vote for, that'll be the winner of the election. The GOP hasn't anyone on the ticket that would excite them - and neither the present ticket nor a Biden/Clinton swap would excite them.
It's all going to come down to who the Republicans put on their ticket, of course, but it looks like the election will come down to "the devil we know, versus the devil we don't know" - and if Obama swaps those two positions, he'll lose THAT advantage.
But anyone who is sure about what the GOP is going to do is probably wrong about a lot of other things as well.