For last time, maybe, Clinton won't be VP

President Barack Obama already has said no, he will not dump Vice President Joe Biden from the November ticket.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton already has said no, she will not be on the national ticket at all and believes her current public post will be her last.

But some folks in the Democratic camp are determined to keep speculation alive.

Multistate robocalls and a website have been anonymously plugging Hillary for president 2012. Clinton-friendly consultants and op-ed writers have offered their freelance endorsements for vice president. And perhaps a soft drumbeat born of grievance could be perceived as former President Bill Clinton said, "Oh, I think, yes," when Fox's Bill O'Reilly asked him if during the 2008 Democratic primaries the news media favored Obama.

At this late date, the vice presidency has moved to No. 1 among chimerical Hillary scenarios, its purveyors appearing to have their eyes on 2016, when either a term-limited Obama or his Republican successor occupies the White House.

In New York, where she had served as U.S. senator, Democratic movers and shakers stood solidly behind Clinton four years ago until she conceded the nomination.

Many of the same people now blast the substitute-VP idea as silly.

"This is a great fascination for political pundits with too much time on their hands," said Robert Zimmerman, Democratic national committeeman from Long Island. "It is also a delusion of local politicians who have attended too many events with bad catering."

"When the smoke clears, nobody votes for vice president," Zimmerman says. "People vote for president. Joe Biden . . . has been a great advocate [for Obama] around the country, especially for the key targeted audience of working, middle-class Americans."

One seasoned manager of Democratic campaigns in New York City agreed. For Obama to chuck Biden, he said, "would be tantamount to admission that the president's even weaker than the polls show him to be. It's not going to happen."

A longtime Democratic aide to elected officials said: "This is never going to happen in 4 million years. If Obama does switch, it would mean he thinks he should have lost last time -- because you choose a vice president to replace you if you die. It would instantly polarize things even more."

Not to suggest that all Clintonistas of four years ago are resigned to backing Obama even if Clinton were to magically appear in the No. 2 slot.

As a major Clinton fundraiser, Lynn Forester de Rothschild made waves in 2008 when she endorsed Republican John McCain for election, saying the Democrats had moved too far to the left. She's been a member of the DNC's platform committee.

In November, de Rothschild wrote on the Huffington Post: "President Obama has broken trust with the American people. Not only has he left us more bitterly divided than ever imaginable, but since the beginning of his presidency, 1.3 million more Americans are unemployed, 913,000 private sector jobs have been destroyed, 13 million people have been added to food stamp dependency and over 6 million have lost their homes."

All the competition in New Hampshire this time was under the GOP banner. But expect neither a tension-free Democratic Party nor a Clinton run of any kind this year. Barring a jaw-dropping event, both appear unlikely, to the point of illusory.