Posted by Shyam Moondra
The latest polls indicate that President Barack Obama would win over Republican challenger, Gov. Mitt Romney, by a small margin. Given that Obama was handed a severe recession and a major financial crisis by his predecessor President George W. Bush, two presidential terms may not be enough to fully recover from the recession and put in place policies that would help achieve long-term prosperity. That means, Obama must not only win the second-term with a comfortable margin but his victory must also be decisive enough to generate the coattail effect to help Democrats win the House of Representatives. Also, he must not be reduced to a lame duck president in his second term and he must leave a succession plan to continue his policies beyond his second term. And what that means is that Democrats need the Obama-Clinton ticket to face the Republican Romney-Ryan ticket.
Hillary Clinton, who has done a tremendous job as the First Lady, Senator, and currently as the Secretary of State, would instantaneously fire-up half of the voters, the women, whose overwhelming support could easily hand a grand victory to Democrats in November. Clinton showed extraordinary campaigning skills in 2008 when she ran against Obama in the primaries. Not only Clinton could help Obama win the second term, her female supporters could prove to be instrumental in Democrats’ winning the House as well. With Democrats controlling the White House, Senate, and House, Obama could then move forward on his balanced approach to reducing deficit/debt, education, energy independence, immigration, and infrastructure improvements.
Clinton, who tends to be at a little right to the center in terms of her political philosophy (less than, of course, former President Bill Clinton, who ruled from the right more than most other Democratic Presidents), would provide a perfect balance to Obama who has a tendency to rule from the left of the center (and that is his biggest weakness in the current political environment).
After Obama’s second term, Clinton would be a shoe-in to run for the office of the president in 2016 and win. Clinton could then continue with the Democratic agenda and finish the job in her two terms. While Vice President Joe Biden is a good man, Clinton’s popularity, her leadership skills, and political acumen are far more superior to those of Biden. Biden’s tenure as the Vice President has not been as remarkable as that of Clinton as the Secretary of State.
At their Party Convention, Democrats have to find a way to make the switch in the vice presidential candidate. In fact, Biden could remove himself as a candidate and then nominate Clinton instead. Of course, if Obama-Clinton ticket wins, Biden could be given a choice assignment, perhaps a cabinet position (e.g., as Secretary of State, given his expertise and interest in foreign affairs) or he could be named as personal emissary of Obama, a sort of world trouble shooter, to accomplish big things such as orchestrating a settlement between Israel and Palestinians or engaging with North Korea, the kind of job that Biden might in fact enjoy. Another possibility for Biden would be to become the President of World Bank.
The most important issue for the next president would be to come up with a long-term deficit reduction plan which will bring down deficit by $5-6 trillion over ten years with a fair mix of tax increases and spending cuts. This important job couldn’t be done without first getting rid of gridlock in Washington, DC. An Obama-Clinton ticket would go a long way to accomplish that.
