Hillary can't afford to wait another eight years for the presidency.

There is an old Arab joke about a genie who comes to a peasant farmer and offers him a wish, under one condition: whatever he would receive, his neighbor would get double. The peasant farmer, who hated his neighbor deeply, replied, "Could you take out one of my eyes?"
 
I don't believe Hillary can afford to wait eight years to run for president, assuming her appeal on the ticket could create a 2008 Democratic victory. Why would she believe she could afford to create a situation requiring an eight-year wait, making her almost 70, before she runs for the presidency again? There is also a major ego issue (for both her and Obama) and the deep personal insults traded openly in the press and on television.
 
As for Senator Obama, he is young enough to wait eight years, but . . . His accepting a second place slot on the Democratic ticket seems a quitters' way out, since it is extremely unlikely Hillary could close the delegate count gap he now has over her among Democratic primary voters. But let's take this as a theoretical situation.
 
Let's say some course of events happens to make Senator Obama feel he could accept the vice presidential slot behind Hillary and still save face and reputation among his supporters. He certainly would be still reasonably young after eight years. But then what? Assuming a win by a Clinton-Obama ticket in 2008, he could study the history of how Al Gore was treated. As the end of the second Clinton term neared, every professional pollster and politician knew that Florida, with its many Cuban-American voters, would loom large in the coming 2000 election. What did the Clintons do to "help" Al Gore? They sent Elian Gonzales back to Cuba, enraging the Miami community and losing tens of thousands of votes that would have assured Al Gore the Presidency. My theory is that the Clintons did this to undermine Gore so Hillary could run in 2004. But whether you agree with my theory or not, you could say that since neither Bill or Hillary could run for president again after two terms each, why would they undermine a Vice President Obama? Well, to believe that one, you would have to believe that the Clintons are not racist – or spiteful for its own dramatic emotional rush. The recent campaign in South Carolina, the remarks about Obama being a former drug dealer, the television commercial with Obama's skin tone darkened, belie the idea the Clintons aren't racist. As for spiteful for its own dramatic emotional rush, well, remember Billy Dale?
 
Billy Dale, the White House Travel Office head, was a President Kennedy appointee, i.e. presumably a Democrat, who stayed on in Washington through many administrations of both parties. The Clintons could have asked him to retire quietly as they brought in their own friends to the job. But no. They accused him of crimes, rode him publicly out of the White House on the hood of an SUV, the Twenty-first Century equivalent of tar and feathering. You would have thought Billy Dale was a Nixon appointee. Mr. Dale had to hire a very expensive lawyer, eat up his retirement savings – and saw the judge throw out the charges against him in minutes. If the Clintons would do this to someone who had never mocked them in a debate, never called Hillary wrong on the Iraq War — what would they do to Senator Obama if they controlled his daily schedule, where he went and what he did?
 
Of course I could be wrong and Senator Obama and Senator Clinton could run together on the same ticket, but that still wouldn't guarantee them a win in November. But if they run together, they both risk a stress-related heart attack or aneurysm, as well. After this very bitter primary campaign ends, how would you like to be the person to stand at the podium to announce they were running together? Would jeers turn to cheers? Or would you need a wire mesh cage, like the Blues Brothers had in their movie when they performed at the country western bar, in order to protect yourself against thrown objects? Stay tuned.
 
I wish it were different, but this is the situation we will all have to put up with, hopefully for no longer than November 4, 2008.