Rudy Giuliani predicts: Clinton/Obama will be our ticket. Calls it "formidable".

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, frontrunner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, is predicting that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will team up to form the Democrats' White House ticket, US media reported Sunday.

"I believe she will be the nominee, and Senator Obama will be the vice presidential nominee," Giuliani said in remarks reported by the Washington Post.

"That's the candidacy we are going to be facing, and that is a very formidable candidacy," he said in an interview conducted late last week.

Clinton, who is vying to make history by becoming America's first woman president, has opened up a sizeable lead over the rest of the Democratic field, including Obama, who aspires to be the first African American president.

Many political observers agree with Giuliani that the former first lady is opening up a sizeable lead for the Democratic nomination.

The ex-mayor's prediction of an eventual Obama vice-presidential nod goes against conventional wisdom, however.

"He's kind of earned it," Giuliani said. "He brings a kind of enthusiasm to the ticket that everyone desires and likes to have."