There are as many reasons not to dump Biden and pick Hillary as there are to do so.  No one really knows which way Obama will go.  But desperate people do desperate thing in desperate situations.

When Sarah Palin first hit the national stage, the objective, unbiased, mainstream media immediately began to speculate how long it would take for McCain to recognize his “mistake” and replace her on the ticket.  Two weeks later that speculation is all but gone — for Palin.  Instead, another vice presidential candidate has become the object of this attention:  Joe Biden.

Biden himself raised this prospect when he volunteered a few days ago that Obama may have been better served by picking Hillary as his running mate.  This followed the non-bounce bounce his selection produced for the Obama campaign, causing one to wonder why he was put on the ticket in the first place, and coincided with the neverending series of misstatements and idiotic comments coming from the “Human Gaffe Machine.” It makes it hard to criticize Dan Quayle or any other Republican as an idiot when you ask a paralyzed man to stand, or can’t even remember the name of the guy heading your ticket . . . or continue to refer to yourself as the ticket head instead of Obama.

The stupidity of picking Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate has become so evident that even the New York Times has begun to chronicle the embarrassing gaffes he makes. You know you’re in trouble when the flagship liberal newspaper won’t cover for the Vice Presidential nominee of the Democrat Party.

Replacing a candidate in mid-stream is not new in American politics, but it is rare.  On the national level the last time this was tried was in 1972 when George McGovern asked Thomas Eagleton to step down because, well, Eagleton was nuts.  McGovern went on to lose 49 of 50 (not 57) states in the presidential election.  If history is an indicator, replacing a poorly-chosen vice presidential candidate is not a winning strategy.  But then again, picking a lousy nominee in the first place isn’t either, as looking at Dole, Gore and Kerry will readily attest.

But, if the history of the last few years has shown anything, it’s that history is being re-written as we speak.  New Jersey Democrats violated their own state constitution in 2002 in the name of “fairness” to replace Bob Torricelli with Frank Lautenberg and win the election.  However the U.S. is not New Jersey, so I remain unconvinced that the same bait and switch methods would see similar success in a presidential election.  But, for the fun of it, let’s speculate for a while about what replacing Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton would mean in 2008.

First, what would be the justification for Biden stepping down?  The fact that it was a dumb choice in the first place reflects poorly on Obama’s decision-making capabilities.  So, the reason would have to be something other than Biden has proven himself to be the fool we all knew him to be.  If I was Obama, I’d give Joe one of two cover stories to pick from. 

As one option, he could claim poor health.  Biden has had two brain aneurisms, so what’s one more?  This would make a play for the sympathy vote, as well as underscore the fact that McCain is an old guy too.  If Biden, who is younger than McCain, is just moments away from death, then McCain obviously has both feet in the grave.  The bet here is that people would be so fixated on old white guys dying that they’d forget it was Obama who went out and picked a dying old white guy in the first place.

However, if I was Biden, I’d reject this option.  As “cool” (to quote Obama’s new catch phrase) as it would be to smear McCain this way, Biden still wants to be a factor in American politics.  It’s hard to do this if the good citizens of Delaware won’t re-elect a walking corpse (Biden is up for re-election to the Senate in 2008).  Assuming he wins re-election, it’s difficult to exercise power in the Senate when everyone is watching for that “third time is a charm” moment when Biden drops dead in mid-bloviate.

So, if I was Biden, I’d choose option two.  I’d drop out to spend more time with my children.  Never mind they’re all grown up and don’t need his parental help anymore (unless taking the fifth at his lobbyist son’s upcoming trial counts).  It’s a great way to smear Palin for abandoning her family to run for national office.  Democrats always do things “for the children,” so this would help kill two birds with one stone.  Get rid of the self-inflicted Biden albatross around Obama’s neck, and make Palin out to be an unfit mother for living the feminist dream of having both a career and family.  Never mind the hypocrisy of this approach.  Chris Matthews and the rest of the press will get another tingle crawling up their collective legs every time they recite these words.  

Now that Biden is out of the picture for whatever reason, it’s time to replace him with Hillary.  The first assumption is that Hillary would actually want to do this, and if she does, that it would actually help Obama win.  I’m not too sure about either of these calculations, so once again let’s look at the possibilities and their real world implications.

Hillary replaces Biden — but when?  Before the debate?  That’s only two weeks away.  After the debate?  Even the press will have a hard time explaining away the idea that Palin beat Biden in the battle of minds, and thus Hillary comes in to save Obama’s biscuits rather than due to Biden’s “independent” reason for dropping out.

Remember, for the fiction to have any credibility at all, circumstances must lead to Biden withdrawing for personal reasons, not because he lost a debate to Palin.  Sure, the Democrats and press can lie about anything with a straight face and claim that Biden’s debate performance had nothing to do with the decision, but they need more than five additional weeks to make that lie stick.  There simply isn’t enough time left to snooker the public through repetitious lies and smears in order to affect the outcome of the 2008 election.

Now that Hillary is on the ticket with Obama (regardless of the timing issue, and its implications for Biden’s political future and/or Obama’s decision-making credentials), let’s ask the follow-up question.  Does this actually help Obama?

Certainly, a number of highly agitated Hillary supporters would return to the flock.  But countering that is the dramatic strengthening of the Republican base following Palin’s selection.  The bounce McCain received for selecting Palin hasn’t necessarily come from hardcore Hillary supporters.  The few prominent examples supporting McCain are just window dressing.  Most ticked off Hillary supporters would simply withhold their vote for Obama, aiding McCain by default. 

Rather, the increase in support for McCain-Palin has come from independents and moderate Democrats.  Contrary to NOW’s protestations, the vast majority of American women don’t wake up every morning worrying about whether the government will take away their constitutional right to kill their own baby.  Whether these women would now exchange Hillary for Sarah is uncertain.  They’re just as likely to see Hillary’s re-introduction as a ploy as they are a gift from the political gods.

Palin transformed a lukewarm support for McCain into an energized support among both men and women.  Palin, who walks the walk not just talks the talk, has energized these women, as well as the Reagan-Democrat base (men and women) who don’t think her NRA-holding, moose-hunting, baby-birthing credentials make her a freak of nature. 

We don’t really know how much it will help Obama to dump Biden and choose Hillary, so let’s ask the same question a different way.  How much will it hurt Obama now to take Hillary on as his second choice?  I don’t know, precisely.  But it certainly doesn’t help relative to the impact selecting her in August would have had.  It would be seen today as another self-inflicted wound for the man his critics charge lacks the judgment to be President.  And, it would further energize the Republican base and public at large who’ve had enough of Clinton-style politics.  The positive support for Palin aside that will help the Republicans, Hillary has the highest negatives of any candidate ever to run for office.  It doesn’t really matter whether she’s number one or number two on the ticket, the broken glass crowd (as in “I’d walk over broken glass”) will be out in force to vote against her.

Moreover, it’s not even clear that Hillary would accept the VP slot today.  Obama’s campaign is in freefall.  His image is tarnished, his message confused, his leadership in question.  If he loses without Hillary on the ticket, she’s the hands-on favorite to secure her party’s nomination in 2012.  If he loses in 2008 with her on the ticket, it damages her politically as well.  If Hillary can’t “save” Obama in 2008, why turn to her in 2012 to represent the Democrat Party?  Palin represents the new blood in the Republican Party.  It would be time to look for someone new in the Democrat Party too, not a leftover from the 1960s who messed up health care in the 1990s.

But what if Obama wins with Hillary on the ticket?  Again, she’s SOL.  Hillary can’t run until 2016 unless Obama pulls an LBJ and refuses to stand for re-election. By 2016 the country will have had 8 years of liberal idiocy and be in the mood for change, or 4 years of liberal idiocy followed by 4 years of President Palin cleaning up the mess she inherited by defeating President Obama.  Do you really think the Democrats will put up a 70-year-old has-been in 2016 to defeat the first incumbent female president to run for re-election?

And so, it’s not at all clear to me that adding Hillary at this later date would help Obama overcome any of the defects I noted in “Why Obama Lost the 2008 Election,” or that Hillary would even want the job if it was offered to her.

But there is one reason she might accept, offered by Michelle Obama herself.  “As a Black man, Barack can get shot going to the gas station.”

We all know from the unbiased, mainstream press that Sarah Palin appeals to misogynist, NRA card-carrying, gun-toting religious fundamentalists who are just looking for another James Byrd to drag behind their pickup trucks.  Just how difficult would it be for these committed Christian fanatics to arm themselves with their favorite AK-47s and elevate the second black president of the United States into immediate sainthood?  People around the Clintons have a way of meeting with accidents anyway, so having Barack Obama in the White House is just like pouring gasoline on the gun-nuts fire.

Before you accuse me of unfairly parodying liberal thought, just have a quick look at the following: 

● “America is filled with gun nuts, and any one of them could turn Obama into Martin Luther King, Jr. at any moment.”  http://www.danablankenhorn.com/2008/01/obama-scaling-t.html 

● “Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing caused uproar last night by predicting the assassination of Barack Obama if he becomes the first black U.S. president . . . Miss Lessing said: 'He would probably not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would kill him.'"

● “It is not a question of 'will' but 'when,' on an assassination attempt of 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama by white people, says Underprivileged Media publisher Elbert Devrny Jr. 'They slew Martin Luther King and Jesus Christ. How much less is Obama than them?'" http://ghettobraggingrights.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/whatll-blacks-do-when-whites-kill-obama-also/

● "While the very idea of Obama being assassinated is repugnant, it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibilities . . . [T]he idea of a President Obama is extremely threatening to a certain small subset of the American population . . ."
http://www.lottaworld.com/2008/01/obama-president

Even the New York Times gleefully joins the speculation:

● "'I’ve got enough black in me to want somebody black to be our president,' [Clara Vereen] said in her tiny beauty shop, an extension of her home, after a visit from an Obama organizer. 'I would love that, but I want to be real, too.' Part of being real, said Ms. Vereen, whom everyone calls Miss Clara, is worrying that a black president would not be safe. 'I fear that they just would kill him, that he wouldn’t even have a chance,' she said as she styled a customer's hair with a curling iron. One way to protect him, she suggested, would be not to vote for him. And Mrs. Clinton? 'We always love Hillary because we love her husband,' Ms. Vereen said. Then she paused. Much of the chitchat in her shop is about whether a woman could or should be president. 'A man is supposed to be the head,' she said. 'I feel like the Lord has put man first, and I believe in the Bible.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/us/politics/14carolina.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all#

So what does all this add up to?  Replacing Biden is a gamble, as is bringing Hillary on board.  Not only would her negatives be high, but Obama would have both her and Bill constantly looking over his shoulder and second-guessing him during his term in office. 

It doesn’t even take the threat of some gun-wielding Christian fanatic going after Obama, as the liberal press constantly reminds us.  Should the same fate befall Obama in 2010 that befell Bill Clinton in 1998 — impeachment — does anyone really believe that Hillary would stand solidly behind Obama as Gore did for her husband.  Or would she and the First Laddie be working overtime to drive Obama out of office and inherit the mantle she was "unfairly" denied in the first place?

There are as many reasons not to dump Biden and pick Hillary as there are to do so.  No one really knows which way Obama will go.  But desperate people do desperate thing in desperate situations.

And a guy who’s lost both his commanding lead and credibility is the poster child for desperation.