Clinton supporters demand VP slot, but key Dems wary
Now that Barack Obama has essentially locked up the Democratic nomination, speculation is turning to who he should pick as a running mate.
The name at the top of a lot of lists is his opponent Hillary Clinton -- who pointedly refused to concede the race once Obama locked up a majority of delegates Tuesday night. The former first lady's supporters are now mounting a campaign to force her into the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket.
Lanny Davis, one of Clinton's most outspoken supporters, has started a petition drive to get the former first lady selected as Obama's running mate.
Clinton's campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said she would carry crucial swing states that had rallied to her candidacy and that together, the pair would be an "unstoppable" force.
"I think we would have the White House for 16 years," he told MSNBC television, anticipating two terms each for Obama and an eventual president Hillary Clinton.
Obama's campaign has said it's too early to decide who would be the best running mate, but the Democratic victor called Clinton Tuesday night to congratulate her and suggest the two sit down and talk about the future of the race soon.
Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter scoffed at the idea of a unity ticket, calling it the "worst mistake that could be made" because it would emphasize the party's problems rather than diminishing them.
"If you take that 50% who just don't want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don't think Obama is white enough or old enough or experienced enough or because he's got a middle name that sounds Arab, you could have the worst of both worlds," Carter told The Guardian newspaper.
Some Obama supporters are wary about the prospect of a team-up ticket, saying Clinton would overshadow Obama, her family's baggage would be a drain on his campaign and the pairing would blunt his potent message of change.
"It’s backward looking to pick a Clinton at this point — and he’s all about forward looking, to being about change," Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic organization, told the New York Times. "He’s all about a fundamentally new kind of politics. Picking a Clinton is by definition backward looking, and I just don’t think he wants that."
Times columnist Maureen Dowd warned Obama would seem "henpecked" if he succumbed to pressure to take on Clinton as a running mate, comparing the situation to Walter Mondale's selection of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.
Speaking Tuesday night after it became clear Obama has locked up a majority of the delegates, Clinton's tone was anything but conciliatory, and she whipped her supporters into a frenzy, assuring them she would make "no decisions" and promising that the 17 million-plus people who voted for her would no longer be "invisible."
Despite Clinton's calls to unify the Democratic party, some of her most vociferous supporters are outraged at the prospect of an Obama nomination and have said they would vote for McCain. Placing Clinton in the No. 2 spot may be the only way to hold on to her coalition of older, white, blue collar voters.
Obama's communications director Robert Gibbs side-stepped the VP talk, saying that the choice of running mate was "a serious process that will begin in earnest now."
However, some prominent Clinton backers were not waiting for Obama to begin his search.
Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson said he had written to African-American leaders in Congress demanding that Clinton be placed on the Obama ticket.
"I've been in touch with her all the way in my thinking about how we can move this country in a unified way," said Johnson, who ran into trouble on the campaign trail by bringing up Obama's youthful drug use.
"And she's prepared to be a part of that unity," the African-American business mogul told CNN.
Another Clinton supporter, New York Representative Charlie Rangel, said Obama needs to reach out to her "broken-hearted" voters.
"But if we see that her candidacy is treated with respect and that we're going to have one ticket, the Obama-Clinton ticket," he said, "I think that would bring us together like no other political ticket in history."
With wire reports
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