Friday, June 06, 2008

Shall They Dance

Sun-Tzu, the Chinese General and military strategist circa 400 B.C. is attributed with being the first to say, “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”.

I suspect Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will each be giving the words of General Sun-Tzu much consideration as long as they both remain in politics. Publicly, they will appear to be close friends, yet privately, they will always remain close enemies.

Barack Obama desperately needs the support of Hillary Clinton voters, but at the same time, he cannot appear to need Hillary Clinton. Senator Clinton desperately wants to be President of the United States, but at the same time, she cannot appear to be a sore loser.

A Vice President Clinton would be closer and less of a pain in the rump to a President Obama than a Senator Clinton would be, but a Clinton on the ticket could add to the scandals sticking to Senator Obama.

The Vice Presidency could be a stepping stone to becoming President, but it isn’t a stepping stone Senator Clinton needs.

No matter what happens in the November election, expect lots of tap dancing from these two for years to come.

4 comments:

Count Grecula said...

Good to have you back David!

Buz said...

If Obama picks Hillary as his VP, and they win, I am going to run out the day after inauguration and take out a $1M life insurance policy on him.

I think people who have been between the Clintons and where they want to be have a history of shortened lifespans.

I am still not sure he will survive (politically) between now and the Convention. If she backs out ... being first runner up ... and suddenly the news breaks that he is a cannibal, or worse, a closet conservative, guess who is primed to step into that void.

Buz

David M. Smith said...

Hi Count,

I don’t know how “back” I am, but I did at least have two contrarian thoughts this week. : - ) Thanks for stopping by.

David M. Smith said...

Hi Buz,

I agree with you. Something must be going on behind the scenes we don’t know about because Hillary should at least wait until the Democratic convention actually counts the votes because the delegates have the right to change who they want to vote for.

A little payola now would go a lot further than the a knife in the back later. Perhaps Senator Obama has already been able to put his campaign donations to good use (sic).