Hillary should put Obama on ticket [View All]

Hillary should put Obama on ticket
July 25, 2007
BY ANNA QUINDLEN

FOR HILLARY: A PROPOSAL
TO: HRC
RE: VP

Well, senator, with the "Sopranos"-influenced video gone viral, you managed to convince millions of Americans that you do have a sense of humor. With the continuing massaging of your position on Iraq, you've managed to convince a significant number of liberals that you have a sense of urgency about the war. And with the most recent poll results, you must have a sense of yourself as the front-runner.

Now it's time to show that you have a sense of history, a sense that this election is bigger than just one woman's ambitions. Make it your business to persuade Barack Obama to be your running mate.

Conventional thinkers like to make this sound risky, pairing a woman and a black man on the ticket. But it's not as wild as it sounds. The calculus of choosing someone for the second spot is always, first and foremost, whether the choice hurts your chances. The answer here is no. Anyone who would be put off by Obama isn't going to vote for you in the first place.

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You and Barack Obama are a good match as well -- intelligent, eloquent, with similar positions but from different generations, which means he could afford to be patient in his ultimate ambitions. The elder Bush had to eat some crow when he joined the Reagan campaign. There were differences on policy issues and harsh words, most notably when Bush referred -- correctly -- to Reagan's "voodoo economics." Both you and Obama have taken care not to bicker. No apologies necessary.

He would have to decide he would be willing to coexist with a strong woman. But it seems as though he already does that at home. You would have to be willing to let a charismatic man steal some of your thunder, but you do that at home, too. This would be a political marriage of convenience, sure, but one that could excite the country.

Everyone is poised for big change, big ideas. Do the big thing that also happens to be the right thing. Your Web site says: Help make history. Go ahead. I dare you.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/482244,CST-EDT-anna25.article