Dionne: Graceless Under Fire

WASHINGTON--Hillary Clinton talked her way out of the vice presidency on Tuesday night.

Barack Obama may never have intended to make her the offer. But Clinton's largely self-focused non-concession speech suggested that what some call a dream ticket could turn into a nightmare.

...politics is also about signals and gestures, doing the right thing at the right moment, dealing with outcomes not to your liking.

Clinton's choice was to present Obama with an implicit critique that might be seen as a set of demands. Clinton told her supporters: "We won together the swing states necessary to get to 270 electoral votes." Message to Obama: You failed to do that, and you need me to get it done.

She also offered an argument she made during the campaign that John McCain is certain to use, over and over, against Obama. "Who will be the strongest candidate and the strongest president? Who will be ready to take back the White House and take charge as commander in chief and lead our country to better tomorrows?" Whose purpose did she serve by repeating this?

...Hillary Clinton is an enormously talented public servant. Many who ended up supporting Obama once hoped to support her. But Clinton's political future requires her to accept that Obama has prevailed, that the primary campaign is over, and that graciousness in defeat can, paradoxically, be turned into the most powerful leverage of all.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=54851f0e-11f2-45b7-9bf4-8829b298cd33

WASHINGTON--Hillary Clinton talked her way out of the vice presidency on Tuesday night.

Barack Obama may never have intended to make her the offer. But Clinton's largely self-focused non-concession speech suggested that what some call a dream ticket could turn into a nightmare.

Clinton did declare it an "honor" to have Obama as an opponent and "to call him my friend," but she made no acknowledgement of the historic nature of her opponent's achievement. Democrats, once the party most associated with slavery and segregation, had just taken the decisive step of making Obama the first African-American to be a major-party nominee for president. But Obama was not really on Clinton's radar.

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Clinton's choice was to present Obama with an implicit critique that might be seen as a set of demands. Clinton told her supporters: "We won together the swing states necessary to get to 270 electoral votes." Message to Obama: You failed to do that, and you need me to get it done.

She also offered an argument she made during the campaign that John McCain is certain to use, over and over, against Obama. "Who will be the strongest candidate and the strongest president? Who will be ready to take back the White House and take charge as commander in chief and lead our country to better tomorrows?" Whose purpose did she serve by repeating this?

"To the 18 million people who voted for me, and to our many other supporters out there of all ages, I want to hear from you," she said. "I hope you'll go to my Web site at HillaryClinton.com and share your thoughts with me and help in any way that you can."

Perhaps this was a final pitch for funds, understandable in light of her campaign debt. But it also seemed to have echoes of Richard Nixon's Checkers speech. Was she trying to create a groundswell to pressure Obama to give her the second spot?

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But gaining the vice presidency by invoking leverage just can't work. It makes the presidential candidate look weak. It breaks in advance the trust that running mates need. It can only presage conflicts and power struggles in a new administration.