"It's Sarah, Senator."

Rrrrrring!

"Hello."

"Governor, Senator McCain is on the line."

"Awesome.  Put him through."

"Sandra, it's John McCain.  I hope I didn't wake you."

"Um, no, I was just putting up some walrus meat.  Where does the day go, right?  Well, you know what they say, there's only twenty-two hours of light in a day.  And it's Sarah, actually."

"Beg pardon?"

"My name is Sarah, not Sandra."

"Oh, right.  My bad.  Look, I'll get right to the point.  I just finished watching Obama in Denver and, I don't mind telling you, I'm a little worried.  For whatever reason, people don't seem to be seeing through his messiah act.  First reactions are coming in on the convention and I expect he'll see a pretty good bounce.  We need to shake things up here."

"Er, well, I didn't really watch . . . the baby keeps me pretty busy these days."

"Sure, sure.  Well, trust me, our country is in grave danger.  And I believe that I'm the one to save us.  But I'll need your help.  What would you say to running with me?"

"Running with you?  Why, sure, that sounds fun.  I'm quite the runner, actually.  I finished Humpy's Marathon back in 2005 in under four hours!  How far do you usually go?"

"I don't run, my friend.  I don't run.  When most people were taking up jogging, I was locked in a room, without a table, for five and a half years."

"I'm sorry, Senator.  That was insensitive of me."

"Don't worry about it, kid.  I like your spunk.  I'm not talking about jogging, I'm talking about running as my vice-presidential candidate.  Would you do that?"

"Jeez, I'm shocked.  You could knock me over with a penguin feather, Senator.  Do you really think I'm qualified?"

"Huh?  Qualified?  Listen, Sandy, if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, the vice president has two jobs:  to attend state funerals and to inquire after the health of the president.  Can you do that?"

"Absolutely.  I've got the cutest fox stole I pull out on formal occasions."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to leave the furs in Alaska, Governor.  They don't play down here in DC with the liberal media.  Let me ask you, what's your position on the Iraq War?"

"To tell you the truth, Senator, I don't really have one.  We're pretty independent up here, sir.  We don't pay much attention to the outside world.  To us, you're all pretty much snowbirds."

"Independent.  I like that.  Anything else I should know?"

"Well, I should mention, we're having a spot of trouble with Bristol. . . "

"Pistols?  Don't you worry about the gun issue, Governor.  I used to tussle with the NRA, but I've come around to their side these past few months.  Gun owners have no stronger friend than Senator John McCain and I think your position as a sportswoman can only help the ticket.  You know, pacify the base, shut their yaps for just one goddamn minute.  No, this is feeling right to me.  You know, Sandy, I've always been a shoot-from-the-hip kind of guy.  My gut told me 'Joe,' but my base told me, 'no.'"  OK, then, we move on.  But it's got to be outside the box.  If I play it safe, this race will be The Death of a Thousand Cuts.  Which I know a little about, after spending five and a half years in a real box.  So we'll change the game.  This is the first maverick move I've made since I won the nomination.  I'm back, baby!"

"Not 'pistols,' Senator, Bristol.  My seventeen year old daughter just told us she's five months pregnant.  Now we have to plan a wedding, and quick.  Good thing I own a shotgun, right, sir?  No telling what that boy of hers would have done."

"Listen, family is sacred.  I learned that back in '98 when I told that little joke about Chelsea Clinton at a fund-raiser.  Have you heard it?"

"No, how does it go?"

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?"

"I don't know.  Why?"

"Because her father is Janet Reno.  Get it?  'Course, it was much funnier back then.  She was a mighty plain eighteen year-old, don't you think?  Anyway, I took eight kinds of hell for that one.  Obambi won't dare use your daughter against us."

"Uh, OK, Senator, if you say so.  Just one last thing -- I wanted to mention that I'm being investigated . . ."

"That's fine, Governor, just fine.  It's been good talking to you.  I had a strong feeling about you the other time we talked.  What was it, six months ago?  Now I'm even more sure this is the way to go.  My people will be in touch.  Good night, Sandra."

"It's Sarah, Senator.  I'll be. . ."

Click.

Hillary Who?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, runner-up in the race to be the Democratic presidential nominee, may want to be vice president.  Or she may not.  She may prefer to consider the prospects of Supreme Court justice, cabinet member, Senate Majority Leader or the pursuit of a distinguished legislative career as the junior senator from New York.  All options are on the table and the world waits breathlessly.

Oh, and on Tuesday, a black man was presumptively nominated to be President of the United States.

As a news item, I realize it pales it comparison to uncovering the answer to that timeless question, "What does Hillary want?"  Judging by the media coverage, you'd think most of the eighteen million who voted for Hillary, as well as a good chunk of Obama's eighteen million supporters, were cashing in sick days and vacation time to stay home and monitor the minute-by-minute vicissitudes of Hillary's future prospects.

Who gives a rat's hindquarters? 

She's no longer the story and the sooner the media acknowledges that, the better off we'll all be.  There's a concept known as Q quotient.  It's the attractiveness, and therefore marketability,  of a celebrity.  Well, just before 10 p.m. Tuesday night, when Obama surpassed the 2,118 mark in total delegates, Hillary's political Q quotient dropped by about fifty percent.  She's still on the A list but, let's be honest, the gap between nominee and runner-up is the distance between Mozart and Salieri.  

The Democratic Party is now Obama's Party.  He unleashed a blitzkrieg when he announced his candidacy for president on February 10, 2007 in Springfield, Illinois.  In less than than sixteen months, he went from being a freshman Midwestern senator to the undisputed face of his party.  We had grown so accustomed to the Clinton brand since 1992 that the abrupt shift in power seems all the more seismic.  Less than a year and a half ago it was unthinkable that Hillary would be on the vice-presidential short list and that Bill would have been reduced to albatross status.

But Barack Obama, the Zen Master Assassin from Chicago's South Side, by way of Jakarta, Indonesia and Honolulu, Hawaii, wrested the party from their grasp in front of our eyes.  It was like watching a ninja pluck the still-beating heart from his enemy's chest.  He moved quickly today to follow up on his primary victory, installing his strategist Paul Tewes at the DNC to oversee fundraising.  The DNC announced it will no longer be accepting contributions from federal lobbyists or political action committees, bringing it in line with the Obama campaign's policies.

It's hard to see Obama tapping Clinton for his VP.  While it's impossible to predict definitively her net value or drag on the ticket, Obama can make a strong argument that he doesn't need her.  

She has substantially higher negatives than any other candidate, thereby assuring a more motivated opposition from both the Republican base as well as Clinton haters in both parties.  

While roughly a quarter of Clinton's supporters claim they will vote for McCain in the general election, past evidence suggests this may be a heat-of-the-moment threat.  Since 1992, less than 10% of Democrats and Republicans have crossed party lines when voting for president.  How many women will actually vote to effectively overturn Roe v. Wade in November because they feel somehow cheated or disrespected by the Obama campaign is very much open for debate.  (Appalachia, not so much.  Obama might have to write off that vote although it wouldn't hurt him in some of the swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania to venture into a few hollers to say howdy.  Although, when over twenty percent of voters in Kentucky's primary admit that race was a factor in their decision, even the Scranton Scrapper herself riding shotgun isn't going to bring in the hillbilly vote.) 

In addition, the Clinton Circus travels complete with its own baggage car.  Does Obama really want to deal with that drama for the entirety of his presidency?  How comfortable is he going to be that the Clinton's aren't pursuing their own agendas in the backrooms of Georgetown and Foggy Bottom that they already know so well?  

Speaking of Clintons, plural, Bill might be a Veep deal-breaker all by himself.  Would he be able to pass the inevitable vetting process, what with his undisclosed list of donors and his murky business dealings around the world since he left office?  Would he even want to risk the humiliation?  And, if he did come through the process cleanly, of what value are assurances from the Clintons that he would remain in New York, concentrating on his foundation and piling up frequent flier miles on Air Burkle?  Does anyone really believe that the Big Dawg could actually be kept on a short leash for the next eight years?  

Most importantly, Obama needs to enter the battle with McCain from a position of strength.  He's already saddled with the classic Democrat mantle of "soft on defense," exacerbated by his perceived eagerness to negotiate with anyone who owns a table and two chairs.  Plus, he's Harvard-bred, he dines on salmon and broccoli, he prefers tea to beer and he bowls the way most voters play polo.  The last impression he needs to give is that Hillary dangled her support as so much political capital and managed to strong-arm her way onto the ticket against his effete, elitist will.  

Besides, after watching McCain's performance on Tuesday (Gail Collins of the New York Times captured it perfectly), it's difficult to imagine Obama losing -- I don't care if he picks Mike Gravel.  The contrast between the two candidates could not have been starker.  McCain would be the oldest candidate ever elected president.  His message is incoherent.  He supports the Iraq War, in direct opposition to somewhere between half and three-quarters of the American people.  He's selling Iran as America's most dangerous enemy, the same Iran that has inarguably been the largest beneficiary of the very same Iraq War he defends.  He supports Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy although, to be fair, he admits that he doesn't understand economics.  And he's pushing lobbyists out the back of the Straight Talk Express like ballast off of the Titanic.  

Hillary, besides being yesterday's news, is the least of Obama's worries.  I think his biggest obstacle is going to be overconfidence.   

Obama's Gamble

As Tuesday turned to Wednesday, Tim Russert declared the race for the Democratic presidential nomination over.  He called it firmly, but with a trace of melancholy, as if Barack Obama's defeat of Hillary Clinton represented a sort of metaphysical expiration.  As if we were all of us Romans at the Colosseum, witnessing the death of some noble beast after it had fought valiantly for our pleasure.  The rest of the crew -- Olbermann, Matthews, Brokaw --  were appropriately somber and respectful of the moment.  (Except for Norah O'Donnell.  Nothing seems to dampen her wide-eyed enthusiasm and continual amazement at the secrets uncovered by going "inside the numbers.")  We hate seeing a slugfest halted.  Americans, to quote David Halberstam, "liking competitions as much as the end results of them."

But, in the cold, hard light of day, there's nothing to be done about it; Obama has been pronounced the victor and the spoils must be collected.  The most obtrusive piece of spoilage is Hillary's carcass that's been kicked over there into the corner.  What's to be done with her (and her husband and their loyal band of minions)?

Conventional wisdom has it that Obama will have to at least offer her the vice presidency.  The argument is that she would shore up his weaknesses with the pickup-driving, beer-drinking, gun-toting, church-going Middle Americans . . . I'm just going to go ahead and call them poor, white Democrats.  While Obama is perceived as elitist, Clinton has become the man with the iron touch, able to connect on a visceral level with steel workers, short-order cooks and gun show aficionados.  (As long as they're white, that is.  Somewhere along the road, blue collar African Americans got kicked to the ditch, losing their status as "Regular Joes" and became, simply, Obama voters.  I wonder if Chris Matthews could pinpoint for the rest of us exactly when it was that white union members attained their monopoly as average working Americans.)  In addition, she would bring with her the Old Woman vote (as long as they're white, that is) that she has been collecting almost as decisively as Obama has been winning blacks.  As nearly 40% of these two Clinton constituencies have declared themselves prepared to vote for John McCain if Obama wins the nomination, the Clinton VP argument has obvious merit.  Also, her vaunted pugilistic tenacity is perfect for the role of vice presidential attack dog in the general election, allowing Obama to float above the fray which is where he does his best work.  As a bonus, Andrew Sullivan points out that a vice presidential olive branch would also neutralize the Clintons as political enemies, plotting offstage her 2012 presidential run while he tries to manage his way through a first term laden with land mines courtesy of eight years of George Bush.

An Obama-Clinton ticket makes sense on many levels.  I don't think he'll do it.

Obama has been running against the Clinton legacy of Washington-as-usual almost as hard as he's been beating on Bushes 41 & 43.  It's difficult to maintain your brand as the Change Candidate if you show up on the south lawn of the White House with the family who just left the joint eight years ago.  I wouldn't be surprised if Bill still has some keys that work in the West Wing.  

Obama will most likely remain true to his agent-of-change persona.  Somehow, over the past fifteen months, he has acquired the label of "soft," either unwilling or unable to do what it takes to wrest the nomination from Clinton.  In fact, the opposite is the case.  Obama has repeatedly chosen the more difficult political path when faced with a fork in the road towards Principle.  Unlike Hillary, he spoke out against authorizing the Iraq War, taking his political future in his hands in the face of overwhelming support (the Senate vote was 77-23 in favor of the authorization) for Bush's power play.  He responded to the Jeremiah Wright provocation by delivering the signature speech of his generation on race in America.  When Wright continued to stoke the flames of divisiveness, he finally distanced himself from his former pastor, denouncing the words while still declining to condemn the man himself.  He refuses to wear a flag pin in his lapel in the face of questions about his patriotism, believing the pin an empty symbol that has about as much to do with true patriotism as does wearing a red, white and blue name tag at a hotel convention.  And, unlike Clinton and McCain, he chose to call the gas tax holiday what it is, a not-even-particularly-clever piece of political pander that ultimately illustrates his two opponents' contempt for voters' intelligence.

These are not the choices of a weak politician.  In each case, he would have been better served initially, with the media as well as the electorate, to take the path of least resistance.  Stand with the majority in Congress, treat Wright as a black and white issue and cut him loose immediately, wear the damned pin and back the damned holiday.  

But his principles and, I suspect, his political instincts, wouldn't allow him to take the low road.  When asked by a reporter to name a hidden talent, he once said that he was, "a pretty good poker player."  This primary campaign has been a masterful illustration of his repeated willingness to go all in on crucial issues, while maintaining a poker face of zen-like calm.

I don't think he particularly likes the Clintons or the idea of sharing the West Wing with them for the next eight years.  And I think he's betting that he doesn't particularly need them.

He's won most of the chips so far with his principles-first strategy.  The pot keeps getting bigger.  How will he play his next hand?