Second Spouse Bill Clinton?

June 5th, 2008 by Joshua Skaroff

President Bill Clinton

Imagine this: It’s August 28th, 2008 in Denver, Colorado and the Democratic Party is concluding its convention on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech by nominating the first African American candidate of a major party in American history. The crowd is cheering, the balloons are falling, and across the country and the world there is a sense of history being made.

On to the stage steps the tall figure of Barack Obama beaming his megawatt smile and waving at the crowd. He is flanked by his wife Michelle, his running mate, and the running mate’s spouse. They’ve joined hands and lifted their arms in the air. It’s a new day and a new direction for the Democratic Party.

Can you really imagine the last person on that list to be former President Bill Clinton? Can President Clinton be the fourth most important person on the stage that night?

And come January, when it would become President Obama, could he truly run his administration with President Clinton advising Vice President Clinton across the street in the Old Executive Office Building? The man is undeniably brilliant but can he stand in the shadows?

I think Senator Hillary Clinton would be a great running mate and a great Vice President. It could be a 16-year ticket of progressive good governance. But I worry that Bill Clinton, the only Democratic president I have known in my lifetime could not handle his far less prestigious and powerful role.

I’m not sure this is a dream I want to have.


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  • dulois lee
    Lisa,
    how can you say he "won" anything? once you steal votes and punish voters by taking the value of their vote away for an infraction not of their fault, and you ignore your own PARTY rules to do this, you have a rigged election;. I do not believe there is any power or reason in America to "change" or cancel any vote cast in good faith. NOW THE RULES ARE THE PROBLEM, WHEN THEY INTERFERE WITH THE MOST BASIC OF OUR RIGHTS AND RULES ARE ARBITRARY AND CAN EASILY BE CORRECTED. VOTING SHOULD BE THE SIMPLEST THING THAT EVEN AN ILLERATE COULD DO. and obama has not impressed me with his morals, to accept such a rigged vote. d
  • dulois lee
    yes they will be the leader of the free world. They should be a patriotic , non racist, experienced and dedicated proven AMERICAN thru and thru. No politician is squeaky clean, but radical agendas are destructive to a FREE WORLD. we have been invaded and attacked by radical forces and they have pledged to take us down from within. I think obama is just a puppet for a radical agenda. I for one am not for chucking all our instincts and electing an unknown , except for his radical background. I say let him prove himself first. he hasnt even come close. re: Mccain... this man has proven himself to be a patriot and he is capable in warfare and we are at war whether we like it or not. I would trust him over obama without question
    and the dems deserve to lose so they will really see we are not cattle to herded where they decide,or extreme liberals who feel we can tamper with and steal votes to sway an election.!! they have betrayed us and soiled the American process!! d n miss
  • Noah
    It's so silly that we, as Democrats are allowing this issue to dominate the conversation. People put so much stock in a Vice Presidential candidate and what they can bring to the ticket, yet I think we all recognize that the VP is a mostly ceremonial job, with little power attached to it. Outside of maybe casting a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, the VP does nothing. And we're worried about the Vice President's spouse having too much influence?

    This kind of myopia throughout the campaign has been destructive for the party as well as the process, because the truth is, the VP choice matters. It matters not because this person is being chosen as a world leader (in reality, that's not the case), but because we've all been convinced that it matters. 18,000,000 people are really going to base their vote on the VP? Really? That makes us complicit in allowing our electoral process to be dictated by style instead of substance.

    Having a candidate, being through with the intensity of the primary season and coming up on our convention, we have a chance to take a deep breath, clear our heads, and focus on running a substantive campaign to elect the leader of the free world. That's a responsibility that, so far, nobody seems up for.
  • Chuck Thies
    Why do you hate success?
  • Lisa
    DL,
    Senator Clinton was a tremendous candidate but lost the primary by the metric that counts (delegates) and even by almost all metrics that don't count.

    Now, with Barack Obama as a president who will fight for the same issues she ran on, such as universal health care, she will have the opportunity as a US Senator to make a huge difference and be a leader for real change in this country. If you, as a Clinton supporter, vote for McCain, you are working against everything she fought so hard for. Why would you do that?

    I think she can be a much greater force for change as a Senator than she could as a VP, and thus in addition to the arguments Josh made regarding Bill Clinton, I would argue that there are much better candidates for VP.
  • dulois lee
    if it puts hillary in the white house it is a GREAT IDEA.! however, the better scenario is HILLARY IS PRES, OBAMA IS VICE PRES. SHE CAN STAY IN OFFICE 8 YRS, HE CAN LEARN AND THEN RUN FOR THE NEXT 8 YRS AND THE DEMOCRATS WIN THE WHITE HOUSE FOR 16 YEARS!!!!!!!!! WHY NOT PUT THE MOST CAPABLE ONE FIRST AND GROOM THE NEXT MOST CAPABLE????? JUST TOO MUCH COMMON SENSE OBAMA CANNOT WIN, I WILL VOTE MCAIN WITH MORE THAN 18 MIL VOTERS BY ELECTION DAY IF HE IS THE NOMINEE. SHE GOT THE VOTES GIVE HER THE PRES!!!!!!!!!! HE DIDNT WIN HE WAS APPOINTED WITH STOLEN VOTES D IN MISS
  • Delores Eisenbeis
    Sounds like a nightmare to me!
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