Washington, D.C. (rightcommentary.com): With Sen. Barrack Obama all but declaring victory in securing the Democratic Party nomination, talk in Washington and among pundits elsewhere, has shifted to the discussion of Sen. Clinton as his running mate. As you may recall, in prior debates, both joked that the other could happily chose to be the Vice-President with the “Dream ticket” of either Hillary-Obama or Obama-Hillary.

Is Obama-Hillary a good idea? I argue - probably not.

After the smackdown fighting between the two the last five months, I suspect that there is considerably bad blood between the two candidates and their respective organizations. Consider this - Clinton essentially called Barrack an upstart phony who wouldn’t know foreign policy from a rock in the ground. Barrack essentially called her a tired witch who represents failed policies of a forgotten and failed generation.

Now, I realize it’s all about “Hope and Change” for Democrats this election - but if that’s how the candidates referred to each other publicly - imagine how deep the vitriol is privately.

The other factor that is well known is that Clinton sees herself as a Democratic “Joan of Arc” trying to save the party from what she believes to be another Nixon-McGovern matchup. That is why she refuses to quit, even though any sane person can look a the whip counts, look at their ability to garner votes, and realize it’s over. Hillary is clearly hoping for photos to surface on the internet of Obama having sex with farm animals - or something an equally politically catastrophic nature - to derail his candidacy. Her talk of being able to produce an “October Surprise” I believe are overblown. If she had such a bomb - she would have used it. Now is definitely the time for “dead-hand” political measures.

Finally, there are three types of people I’ve ever met who are just crazy - jihadists, Obama-ites, and Clinton-ite campaign supporters. The Obama-ites have repeated told pollsters that they will go into “Jihad” and start railing against the DNC and the party generally if Obama doesn’t get the nomination - about 4 in 10 supporters feel that strongly about it. Similarly, Clinton-ites have also told pollsters that about 3 in 10 of their supporters will rail against the DNC if HIllary isn’t the nominee.

Regardless - it seems to me a “Day of Democratic Rage” is at hand - even before the candidates get to Denver in August.

So my first observation is that if Obama were, for some unknown reason, to chose Hillary to be the VP - it would likely cause considerable chaos within the internal structures of the party and within the campaigns of the Obama-Hillary ticket.

These things I imagine Democrats would poo-poo. “Oh you silly Republican - of course we can get along. We fight like cats during the nomination process but when we’ve picked the nominee - it’s all smiles,” I imagine they would say.

Perhaps. But I don’t think so.

I’d also point out that this phenomenon of “picking the loser” as the VP is a new phenomenon and it hasn’t exactly worked out, largely because there has been no thought given to the factors needed in picking a VP - votes and political balance. In the case of Kerry-Edwards, in addition to never winning a state primary/caucus, Edwards brought absolutely no votes to the table in the General either. Moreover, Kerry and Edwards were so politically close in their positions - there was no diversity of issues that could draw in other voters.

In this case, however, Hillary was/is a serious contender. Moreover, Hillary draws in droves the people who by and large stay away from Obama - white older voters. This demographic is key in a state like Florida where Republicans have a strong organization and will need to win in November. Moreover, Hillary’s ability to draw white voters - across the demographics of age and income - will be key to win states like Michigan, Ohio, and in the South generally.

However, Hillary and Obama’s policy positions are virtually indistinguishable - although Obama is better at packaging them and selling them to the public. Obama clearly is also a bit more rational than Hillary - rejecting the idiocy of the gas-tax holiday in favor of comprehensive energy plan. Obama relies on his personal popularity to survive making such an unpopular position - whereas Hillary is clearly glad handing her constituency - older voters on fixed incomes feeling the pinch from high energy prices.

Given how close they are in policy positions - it would be easy for the Republicans to mount a consolidated attack on what is essentially progressive socialism/liberalism. However, policy positions aren’t the only things the RNC will attack.

The greatest weakness the Obama-Hillary ticket suffers is that you take two polarizing figures and maximize their alienation factors by sticking them together. Obama has a glass jaw - and the RNC is definitely going to break it. Advertisements by 527 organizations (Swift Boat ads) will be fierce against Obama’s ties to Wright, Ayers, and his lack of a real career as a “social organizer”. While Obama did well against Hillary - Hillary did not really come after Obama because of fears of Racism. Quite honestly - since Republicans (much to my dismay) are portrayed as racist to begin with - few 527 organizations will find restraint in attacking Obama - especially on the key weakness he suffers, that white voters by and large won’t vote for him.

Hillary is the RNC’s wet-dream. Thinking they were going to run against her in the General Election in November for 2 years, they have undoubtedly amassed mountains of “op-research” to run against her. If she was the VP candidate - they will undoubtedly use that arsenal against her to get to Obama. While the 527 organizations will be running the “mean nasty” stuff that McCain will undoubtedly be all bent out of shape about (and powerless to do anything about), the RNC will be able to run attacks against Hillary’s voting record in the Senate, her time as “first sniper-dodger,” and a myriad of other issues.

Finally - the Obama-Hillary ticket risks too much in asking too many voters to change how they think/feel about gender and race. While in the primary process, people have come out in droves to vote for either - it’s unclear to me they’ll come out and vote in droves when their pick is #2. Moreover, its also unclear to me that they can sufficiently overcome biases against race and gender nationally to get the Obama-Clinton ticket over the hump. For example, I would expect that the Obama-Clinton ticket will do poorly in the South. Current polling seems to confirm that fact (a great resource for that btw is www.electoral-vote.com).

So given all that - I hope Obama choses Hillary… because I want Republicans to prevail in November. However, I think Obama sees many of these issues as well and ultimately won’t chose Hillary. I do see, however, that Obama will likely help Hillary retire her debts and pay off the campaign - taking much of her staff to help him win the General. But I don’t see Hillary on the ticket…. I hope I do… but I don’t think I will.