In her Chicago Sun-Times column, Laura S. Washington once again dreams of a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton Democratic ticket for 2012. This time, she says, it would be a perfect act of revenge against former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, with whom the secretary of state and her husband famously battled in the 1990s.
… At 69, Biden is a caretaker vice-president, probably too old to run for president in 2016.
Enter Hillary Clinton as the new No. 2. If she can avoid stepping all over Obama’s toes for the next four years, she’ll have ample on-the-job training and another shot at the presidency.
It’s the smartest move Obama could sling Newt’s way. It’s the campaign gift that will never stop giving.
Biden entered the vice presidency with a solid foreign policy resume. The globetrotting, front-and-center player in Obama’s world agenda has visited Iraq eight times as vice president.
A Gingrich nomination would energize liberal and women voters, who despise and fear him.
Day in and day out on the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton would be a stone-cold reminder of the bad old 1990s, when she and her husband battled Gingrich tooth and nail. No one is better prepared to remind voters just who Newt Gingrich really is: The man who incessantly attacked the Bill Clinton presidency. The one who deployed bitterly partisan strategies to bring the government to a halt. The guy who viciously assaulted — and defeated — Hillary Clinton’s prized universal health care plan. And, best of all, it was Newt “Mr. Adulterer” Gingrich who sanctimoniously called for Bill Clinton’s impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair. That last bit will go over swimmingly with women voters, who will be a pivotal voting block next November.
Read Laura S. Washington's entire column at the Chicago Sun-Times.