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"Is the job of Vice President to a Clinton worth having?"

By Ann Althouse

Michael Duffy asks.

Al Gore learned that being No. 2 to Bill was really more like being No. 3 after you factored in Hillary, who had an office in the West Wing and a larger suite of rooms down the hall from the Veep in the Old Executive Office Building. Gore watched his priorities often take a backseat to hers in the first term?and his future run aground as they fought successfully to avoid impeachment and conviction. While she joked with David Letterman on his show that there is no doubt "who wears the pantsuits" in her house, there is little doubt that the Clintons intend to work as a team if Hillary is elected. "I'll be there, talking her through everything," Bill said in Napa Valley, Calif., last month, "like she did with me." One unaligned party wise man said, "Obama may look at the Clintons, at both of them?at that whole thing they have?and say, 'Jeez, that's just way too [messed] up to be a part of. That's just no place I want to be.'"

It's clear that Obama should not subordinate himself to the Clintons. He doesn't need it to set up his next run for the presidency. Vice Presidents haven't been doing too well running for President these past few decades. Obama will have already distinguished himself as the frontrunner. It would be a comedown for him, and he'd be saddled with whatever goes wrong in the Clinton presidency ? or her failed campaign for it. And Obama's distinctiveness is that he offers a clean break from the politics of the past. Why on earth would he want to connect himself to an icon of the politics of the past?

And would Hillary Clinton agree to run for VP under Obama?

Full post as published by Althouse on February 07, 2008 (boomark / email).