Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton (Again!)

By Si Dunn

They both want to serve, and the current predictions are, they each will reach the Democratic Convention with no clear advantage over the other.

So here's the proposal: Let them both serve. It will take both of them to help straighten out the enormous messes that the current Administration will leave behind.

By convention time, whoever has garnered the most delegates should be the candidate for President, and the other one should be willing to run for Vice President. No angry arguments, no bitter backroom deals. Drop the balloons; start the grand speeches.

Glass ceilings will be shattered, greatly minimizing race and gender as future issues in American politics. Two very good political camps will be melded into one unstoppable November steamroller. And both candidates will end up in the White House in positions of leadership, power and influence.

With such an agreement in place and known, Senators Clinton and Obama could stop the negative bombing runs on each other. They could focus harder on giving us their visions for our future and let us simply compare them and decide.

Individually, they are very vulnerable to savage attacks by Republican "swift boats." The GOP's "more of the same, only slightly different" message will not resonate with voters this fall. So the inevitable strategy will be to make endless torpedo runs:

"...And, when Obama was eight years old, he grew fascinated with the changing shapes of clouds and soon became a card-carrying member of the Weather Underground. "

"...And, when Hillary Rodham Clinton was six years old, one of her classmates punched her on the playground, and she cried and started espousing liberal causes. Do you really want a crybaby liberal as Commander in Chief?"

Together as running mates, however, Senators Clinton and Obama would be the Republicans' worst nightmare. The GOP swift boats would steam in and start blasting away at a wide array of targets (both Clinton and Obama do have plenty of baggage that reflects political radar signals). But the swift boats ultimately would sink themselves (and John McCain), because voters quickly would tire of the constant explosions of negativity and just tune out the strident yammerings.

Hope and change. Those are the two main messages that will resonate this fall. John McCain and the Republicans can't offer those visions this time. Together, however, Clinton and Obama can...no matter whose name is listed first on the ticket.

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