Democrat Civil War: Going to the Mattresses?

Back in mid-June, Leslie Gelb floated an idea in an op-ed piece that he published in The Wall Street Journal. After the midterms, he argued, when Robert Gates resigned his position as Secretary of Defense, Hillary Clinton should be given the job in preparation for making her the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2012. As a booby prize – Gelb spoke, of course, in more flattering terms – Joe Biden could be made Secretary of State.

Apart from fact that it requires one to suppose that a man known as “loose lips,” notorious for blurting out the first thing that comes into his mind, would make a decent Secretary of State, Gelb’s suggestion made a certain amount of sense. President Obama was no longer popular; Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill had a considerable following that would be far more likely to come to the polls in 2012 if she were on the ticket; and it had long been obvious that Barack Obama held his Vice-President in contempt.

With these facts in mind, in a post back in July, I noted the criticism leveled at President Obama by erstwhile supporters of Hillary Clinton such as Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and James Carville. And I then raised the possibility that President Obama might seize upon the occasion of Chelsea Clinton’s wedding to catch her father at a time when, as everyone knows, a man from Arkansas can deny no one a favor and that he might then close the deal suggested by Gelb and get the husband of his Secretary of State to call off the attack dogs unleashed by the Clinton family.

Soon thereafter, however, I learned that Chelsea and her intended – the son of a former Congressman convicted on 31 counts of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud and known to law enforcement agencies as Fast-Talkin’ Eddie – had chosen not to invite the current President of the United States to their wedding. In an update to my post noting this ominous fact, I speculated that this might mean that Slick Willie, Fast-Talkin’ Eddie, and the Ragin’ Cajun were planning to go to the mattresses.

In the last few days, three events of interest have taken place, which throw light on the maneuvers taking place. Soon after Bob Woodward of The Washington Post reported that the switch envisaged by Gelb was “on the table,” Joe Biden announced that Barack Obama had asked him to serve again as his running mate and that he had agreed to do so. Then, Obama himself described his original selection of Biden as his running mate back in 2008 as “the single best decision I have made,” and Bill Clinton made it known that, in the next two weeks, he hoped to do at least one campaign “stop for everybody that helped Hillary run for president.”

If you want to make a quick killing, you might want to lay in a mattress or two – for early next year there may be a run on this item. It is, of course, possible that the Clintons have their eyes on 2016, but I would not rule out 2012. Hillary is no spring chicken. The clock is ticking. And the Democratic Party is going to take a terrible pasting on 2 November. Next to no one in the party apparatus, apart from those who owe their jobs to our current President, is happy with his performance right now. How will they feel on 3 November? If they think Obama a liability, I cannot imagine that Hillary will tell them that she is no longer interested in becoming President of the United States.