Hill Dawg for Secretary of State?

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.

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.

Hill Dawg Scared of the Pit Bull?

Keep that pitbull away from me!

Hillary Clinton has found the desire to keep her hands clean after playing in the mud for seven months during her primary campaign versus Barack Obama.

At a town hall meeting in Florida, Hill Dawg stuck to the script, refusing to attack Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin directly.

The most she could muster was a half-hearted revision of her line during the Democratic National Convention.

"No way, no how, no McCain, no Palin."

This appearance further cements the fact that Hill Dawg plans on playing her part as a powerful Democrat in this election, but not much else going forward.

Obama will have to find somebody else to girlfight with Palin...hopefully it's on Pay Per View.

Day Two: Hill Dawg

Day two of the Democratic National Convention featured Hill Dawg giving a energizing speech about party unity...without climbing aboard herself.

Hillary Clinton thanked her supporters (affectionately calling them the "sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits"), pleading with them to vote for the party instead of defecting to the GOP.

"I want you to ask yourselves; 'Were you in this campaign just for me?'" she said.

Clinton rarely spoke of Obama during the 25-minute speech, choosing to stick to vague generalizations of what the democratic nominee should be.

A positive thing that resulted from her speech might have been the potential new mantra for the party in this election.

"No way, no how, no McCain."

During the routine roll call, Clinton stepped into the spotlight one last time to move for an end to the roll call and nominate Obama by acclamation to stop any drama before it started.

Maybe the curtain is finally closing on an era.

You can watch the entire speech here.

Clinton Strongarms Obama to Repay Campaign Debt

Only in America can you nearly sabotage a political party and still have the clout to demand help repaying the campaign you ran into the ground. (In other countries they just take the money)

The buzz over the weekend involves Hillary and Bill Clinton's comments that they won't be able to campaign for Barack Obama unless he helps them pay down the debt Hill Dawg ran up during her campaign.

Obama and his wife wrote personal checks totaling $4,600 as a symbolic gesture that's supposed to coerce Obama's massive donor network to give to Clinton's campaign.

The Clinton's still have a massive amount of clout in the Democratic party, so unfortunately Obama has to help them out to increase his chances of winning in November.

This would be like Ralph Nader asking Al Gore for $20 to get home after George Bush's inauguration ceremony.

U-N-I-T-Y spells Unity (, New Hampshire)

Barry and Hill Dawg showing unity in Unity (ZOMG I just got that!)

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton made their much talked about joint appearance in Unity, NH (get it? They're showing unity in a town CALLED Unity. That works on SO many levels!)

USA Today had a good live blog of the speech from Unity Elementary School. Among the highlights were Obama concurring with someone in the crowd that Clinton does indeed "rock," Clinton calling her campaign with Obama "a spirited dialogue" to the complete shock of the audience, Clinton telling any of her supporters that may vote for John McCain to "reconsider."

Despite all the hype this rally has recieved, I doubt it will have much of a long-term impact on this election. Clinton's supporters knew where they were going within a couple of weeks (to come back from what was likely a tough emotional letdown) after she dropped out of the race earlier this month. Those who decided to come back into the fold of the Democratic party did so, while those who really meant what they said about voting for McCain have joined Harriet Christian and Tracy from West Virginia in going for McCain.

While I'm sure this story will get a lot of play over the weekend, it will have little effect on the Democrats chances this November.

Clinton to call it a race

Soon, dinosaur. Soon.

An adviser with the Clinton campaign says that she will call Barack Obama to formally concede in the race for the Democratic nomination and give a speech to thank all who supported her this Saturday.

Apparently she also plans to endorse the man she's spent the last five months dragging through the mud and will make a call for "Democratic unity." Tracy from West Virginia and the pound (about 52 seconds in) must be very disappointed.

To quote Talib Kweli, she finally fell back.

Stand Down, Stupid.

Somebody needs to silence her instead.

With every major news outlet now declaring Barack Obama as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, attention has begun to Hillary Clinton's unwillingness to concede her campaign.

At her speech in NYC after a primary win in South Dakota and a loss in Montana to end the primary voting, she announced that she would not be making a decision to withdraw from the race.

Clinton hasn't been close to Obama in delegates since his streak of 10 consecutive primary victories in February, but she has hung on and annoyed us all by fighting the inevitable kicking and screaming like a little girl who's mother won't let her get the newest Barbie doll.

According to a New York Times article, Clinton-backers are campaigning for Hillary to be added to Obama's ticket as the Vice President, but given the aggressive nature of Hillary's campaign against Obama, this seems highly unlikely.

If the Democrats expect to have any chance of getting back the White House in November, it's time for them to band together to tell Hillary Clinton thanks for the good show, but its time to go.