To my new job!
Word out of the Obama camp last night is that president-elect Obama is considering Hillary Clinton for his Secretary of State. Other rumored candidates have been John Kerry, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, but wow. This could be pretty big.
The advantages are obvious for both sides. For Obama, he gets a qualified and popular Secretary of State. If, as the article suggests, he's going to spend most of his first year working on domestic policy, Hill Dawg is a great surrogate to send overseas to meet with foreign leaders. It would also quiet any critics who think he is going to pack his cabinet with like-minded friends and Chicago cronies.For Clinton, this is the closest she's going to get to being president. She'll be 69 years old in 2016, which would make her 5 years older than George HW Bush was in 1988 and only 3 years younger than John McCain this year. Another run at the White House probably isn't in the cards.
There are some drawbacks from Obama's perspective, though. As Newsweek reported in it's comprehensive and well-written campaign journal, there were reasons Team O wasn't thrilled about the prospect of her as a running mate.
The advantages are obvious for both sides. For Obama, he gets a qualified and popular Secretary of State. If, as the article suggests, he's going to spend most of his first year working on domestic policy, Hill Dawg is a great surrogate to send overseas to meet with foreign leaders. It would also quiet any critics who think he is going to pack his cabinet with like-minded friends and Chicago cronies.For Clinton, this is the closest she's going to get to being president. She'll be 69 years old in 2016, which would make her 5 years older than George HW Bush was in 1988 and only 3 years younger than John McCain this year. Another run at the White House probably isn't in the cards.
There are some drawbacks from Obama's perspective, though. As Newsweek reported in it's comprehensive and well-written campaign journal, there were reasons Team O wasn't thrilled about the prospect of her as a running mate.
Obama was not inclined to choose Hillary, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. "You don't just get Hillary, you get Bill," said a top Obama adviser. The Obamaites had benefited from Bill Clinton as a loose cannon in the primary campaign. They did not want to be wounded by him in the general election. Still, from time to time, as Hillary's name came up in veep discussions, and Obama's advisers gave all the reasons she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, "Are we sure?" He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good.
Stay tuned.
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