Unity: The Great Need Of The Hour?

So Hillary Clinton goes down to Florida and tries to blow up the nomination race, likening the seating of delegates she agreed were disqualified from the nomination campaign is as vital a voting rights issue as womens suffrage and civil rights and the election in Zimbabwe, ferchrissakes. She's whipped her supporters into such a frenzy that they're looking to recreate the Brooks Brothers Riots of 2000 in Dade County, Florida, and storm the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on May 31 to demand that Florida and Michigan's delegates be seated. She's alienated longtime defenders and showed a willingness to put herself above the good of the party, and by extension the American people.

And for that, she may be getting rewarded.

The punditry is abuzz after a report on CNN this morning that Clinton and Obama have held formal talks about her exit from the race, with Clinton outlining three possible scenarios. Bloomberg reports:

The two Democratic campaigns are talking about ways for Clinton, from New York, to drop her bid for president that may include joining the Illinois senator's ticket, CNN reported. Talks are in a "very preliminary" stage and are described as "difficult,'" the network said.

However, the revelation from CNN cites only anonymous sources. And an interview with David Axelrod on Thursday claimed that talks had not begun between the campaigns:

The chief strategist for the Obama campaign, David Axelrod, said Thursday that no overtures had been made by Mr. Clinton or any prominent supporters to place Mrs. Clinton on the ticket.

"There have been no contacts between the campaigns, and no one is looking for a deal of any kind," Mr. Axelrod said in an interview. "She's running for the nomination for president, as we are. We're focusing on closing out the nominating fight. We'll deal with vice presidential questions in sequence."

Axelrod can say what he wants, but Obama's team has been very willing to compromise on Michigan and Florida of late, and his namecheck of "Team of Rivals" yesterday had people buzzing as well.

You know, you could get bent out of shape about Clinton's destructiveness, but in the end, this is good politics. She got 48%-49% of the primary support, and while that may not be good enough to win, it's good enough for her to have some leverage. I'm outsourcing the commentary on whether or not it's right, and honestly we don't know what's going on here. But she's certainly in Obama's head with all this talk of taking it to the convention, and she comes to the negotiation with a pretty strong hand. Whether that means Vice President or whatever, clearly she has a fair bit of power and a base of support. The unity ticket, if deployed correctly, could absolutely crush McCain, as Chris Bowers notes.

I don't know if having Clinton and Obama on the same ticket would mean that the ticket would produce the above map. However, I do know that we are not going to achieve a realignment unless we win all of the states where one candidate or the other is strong. We need Obama's strength in Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon and Washington. We also need Clinton's strength in Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Ohio and West Virginia. If we are going to truly realign the country, we need to win all of those states, plus a few others like Texas, North Carolina, Virginia and Indiana, four seemingly red states where both candidates are performing reasonably well.

In other words, we need to combine the Clinton coalition with the Obama coalitions, rather than arguing over whose coalition is superior. The nomination campaign is over anyway, so that argument is moot and academic. And, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the most obvious way to combine the Clinton and Obama coalitions to put them both on the ticket? It isn't a perfect method, and it won't work out like the above map, but it is probably the best method available. And really, when one looks over the conservative crop of names that are being floated for VP, like Strickland, Webb, and Bayh, isn't Clinton actually preferable to all of them, too? Not to mention that we are going to have to heal the party, and giving Clinton the VP slot is probably the fastest way to do so.

That's pretty sound analysis. But one thing must be considered: an Obama-Clinton ticket may be great politically. However, how would it be as a governing coalition? That's a key question going forward.