Clinton, Obama hesitate to build "Dream Ticket"

BY GLENN THRUSH AND CRAIG GORDON | glenn.thrush@newsday.com; craig.gordon@newsday.com

May 9, 2008

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - There's only one problem with the idea of a Hillary Clinton- Barack Obama "Dream Team" ticket - neither member of the team is ready to buy the dream.

With Clinton's White House hopes on the wane, chatter of a joint ticket with Obama on the top was making the rounds of Democratic power circles, the media and in the two campaigns themselves.

Obama - who is said to have resisted the idea privately - fueled the talk himself yesterday, telling CNN that Clinton is "an extraordinary candidate ... so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate."

And onetime Bill Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos, now ABC's Sunday morning host, reported yesterday top Clinton aides were eager to discuss a peace treaty contingent on the joint ticket.

Clinton advisers deny the campaign is even considering the vice-presidential slot yet. Two people close to the former first lady were pessimistic, saying she had been emphatically against it when the topic had been raised in strategy sessions.

But analysts say neither candidate may have a choice, particularly if enough of the 260-plus unaligned superdelegates make a dual ticket a condition of their endorsement of Obama - as a way of mending the racial and generational rifts in the party.

"If Senator Obama is the nominee, it will be a very serious option that he has to give serious consideration to," says Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic party operative in Washington. "She's won a lot of delegates, she's raised a lot of money, she would bring a lot to the ticket."

The "Dream Team" idea is being pushed by Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, and former Clinton staffer Sam Arora. But here are some obvious impediments: the candidates' differing opinions about Washington, bitterness over the campaign and the difficulties of Hillary Clinton playing second banana - and her husband playing third.

"I think it's a nightmare," said Andrew Polsky, a political science professor at Hunter College. "There's a long list of her comments [by Clinton] that could be trotted out that would make it a very uncomfortable fit for her to be on the ticket."

A Clinton-Obama alliance seemed little more than a dream at a Clinton rally here yesterday, where she touted her ability to attract white voters. "We need to bring back hard-working people back into the Democratic party," said Clinton, who earned less than 10 percent of the African-American vote in North Carolina and Indiana on Tuesday. "I'm winning Catholic voters, Hispanic voters, blue-collar voters and seniors, the type of people Sen. McCain will be fighting for in the general election."

The pros and cons of a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton "Dream Team" presidential ticket:

PROS

She's a true Democratic star, one of the world's most famous women.
Clinton's shown she can rack up big numbers among women, older voters and blue-collar workers that Obama has failed to win over.
They would reunify two halves of a party split by a divisive primary.
It wouldn't be change vs. experience, it would be change and experience.

CONS

Would undercut Obama's message of "change" in Washington, by picking the ultimate symbol of Washington infighting.
Republicans could recite plenty of Clinton comments questioning Obama's readiness to serve.
Doesn't do enough to shore up one of Obama's weak spots: lack of foreign policy experience.
Bill Clinton - his comments got his wife in trouble several times in the campaign, would he do the same to Obama?