Please Don't Go

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 6, 2008 3:03 PM

If, as this vexing veep search plays out, Barack Obama eventually picks someone other than Hillary Clinton, anyone else, to be his running mate, it could have a devastating impact on part of the nation's economy.

What would the media do?

I mean, really: How could we fill airtime and column inches without the Clintonian soap opera? How could pundits draw paychecks without asking what Hillary really wants? How could we fulfill our First Amendment responsibilities without wildly speculating about the role of Bill Clinton in an Obama administration?

For all the unrelenting criticism of Hillary Clinton for refusing to get off the stage, the media really don't want her off the stage. There has been a journalistic fascination with her, bordering on obsession, ever since she emerged as the wronged woman in the Gennifer Flowers episode and as the headband-wearing feminist who said she could have stayed home and baked cookies but decided to pursue her law career instead. Throughout the White House years--through Whitewater and the missing billing records and Paula and Monica and her declaration of a vast right-wing conspiracy--Hillary was big news.

She was big news when she became the first first lady elected to the Senate, big news as she geared up for a presidential campaign, big news when she teared up, big news when she went from inevitable to impossible, big news when she talked about answering the phone at 3 a.m., big news when she said "Shame on you, Barack Obama!" one day and touted their friendship the next.

And on the rare days when she wasn't big news, Bill Clinton was.

Now, after weeks of chronicling why she stayed in the race, why she didn't concede when Obama clinched the nomination, and why she made a very public hint of her availability for the No. 2 slot, Hillary is the gift that keeps on giving. The media world is awash with reporting and speculation about her motivation and advice to Obama on what he should do.

And if Obama wins in November, imagine the joys of covering whether Vice President Clinton is pursuing her own agenda, and the inevitable stories about what the Second Spouse is up to. Now compare that to the prospect of covering, say, Evan Bayh in the VP's office. Case closed.

So don't believe those stories about how Hillary should pack it in for the good of the party. The media, which roughed her up during this campaign season, are her biggest boosters now.

( Note: The original headline on this column was "Hey, Ho, Please Don't Go," which is, of course, a play on Vietnam-era antiwar chants that often began "Hey Hey, Ho Ho." It frankly never occurred to me that some readers would seize on the "ho" and view that as a disparaging remark about Hillary Clinton. As someone who has criticized some of the sexist treatment she has received, I regret if anyone took that the wrong way.)

A day after her campaign said she would end her quest for the presidential nomination, says the New York Times, "Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton disavowed an effort by her supporters to pressure Mr. Obama into choosing her as his running mate. Mrs. Clinton said that they were acting on their own and that the decision was 'Senator Obama's and his alone.' "

That's all well and good, but did you hear the breathless cable chatter last night after NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported that Obama was going to Clinton's D.C. home for a secret meeting? You would have thought that Obama was sneaking into an Iranian safe house. Later, despite the camera stakeouts, no one got the shot. (They apparently met at someone else's home.) This is why the media don't really want Hillary to go.

There was a vague communique later about a "productive" meeting. He must have found her likable enough.

Bill Kristol declares the VP contest over:

"The Obama camp has moved quickly--and deftly--to shut down the Hillary Clinton bid for the vice presidential pick.

"The well-sourced Jackie Calmes reports in the Wall Street Journal that 'close advisers to Sen. Obama are signaling that an Obama-Clinton ticket is highly unlikely.' . . .

"So the unvettability of Bill Clinton is the way Obama avoids having to offend Hillary and her almost 18 million voters. Obama won't have to publicly rule out Hillary, or make a potentially insulting case that others are better qualified for the job . . .

"At some point--I'd guess pretty soon--Hillary will see the writing on the wall and will take herself out of the running, so she can save face, and to ensure she can't be accused of creating trouble if Obama loses in November. So Obama will be able to make his choice without being accused of having spurned Hillary."

Roger Simon is skeptical of the usual rationales:

"First, do no harm. Obama needs someone who is not going to damage the ticket. Very few people cast a vote for president based on who the running mate is. So even a good choice doesn't help you all that much, but a bad choice can hurt you. Lee Atwater, who was George H.W. Bush's campaign manager in 1988, once told me that Dan Quayle cost the ticket 2 to 3 percentage points . . .

"But Obama must choose carefully. Clinton supporters say she is the strongest choice because only she has been 'fully vetted.' But being fully vetted doesn't mean old stuff doesn't come back to haunt you. Mike Dukakis had been fully vetted on Willie Horton, and John Kerry had been fully vetted on his Swift Boat service. In reality, all Clinton's old baggage -- including Whitewater, cattle futures trading and Travelgate -- is likely to come up again. Presidential elections have a way of breathing new life into old controversies.

"What about Bill? If Hillary has baggage, Bill is a Samsonite factory. Forget about the old stuff. Look at his diminished status with voters, especially black voters, in this election. Look at his drama. 'I have never seen anything like it,' he said recently, referring to his wife's treatment in the primaries. 'I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running!' And is the White House really big enough for one president in the West Wing and another in the East Wing?"

Well, if space is a problem, they could always build an add-on in that big backyard. The Clintons could even pay for it with their $109 million.

The WSJ editorial page imagines a complicated future:

"The real trouble would begin if Mr. Obama wins. He'd then have to cope with both Clintons inside his own administration. The former President is the definition of an unguided missile, whose every public word would be picked up and amplified by the media. Would Mrs. Clinton settle for a traditional veep role, having already been co-president for eight years? We doubt it. Mr. Obama could consign her to such a role, as other presidents have done to other veeps. But he'd then be inviting an internal guerrilla war -- if not from her, then from her many loyalists. Or from Bill. And she couldn't be fired . . .

"If he can't stand up to Hillary and Bill Clinton, forget about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

But it would be good for the Journal, which published entire books about Whitewater.

Hotline has a great line about how Hillary on the ticket would enable John McCain to offer "his own twist on Obamaniacs' anti-dynasty mantra: 'Bush-Clinton-Bush- Obama-Clinton.' "

Amid a flood of pieces on how Hill was hurt by sexism, Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times says, it's the press, stupid:

"This media critic doesn't think sexism was her biggest problem when it came to media. Instead, I offer this humble list of the many ways Hillary Clinton blew it when it came to dealing with media during her campaign.

"Underestimating the YouTube factor -- It wasn't just that she talked about dodging sniper fire when reporters who had been on the trip had video proof that she didn't. Or that her husband said something on a radio show and then tried to tell reporters that he didn't say it. It was that those about-faces and many more were immortalized on the Internet, allowing foes to pass them around like baseball cards -- endlessly reliving the worst hits of the campaign.

"The Clintons, Bill in particular, seemed unprepared for the instant fact-checking and worldwide distribution that the smallest lies get online. It defused one of his biggest weapons, the ability to make any statement sound like the God's truth with his combination of personal charm and ex-Presidential authority. It also made him look whiny and evasive when complaining about press coverage that exposed his obfuscations . . .

"Reliving the Whitewater/Lewinsky press dynamic -- I get that the Clintons feel persecuted by the press because of all the Mickey Mouse crap that went down during the Whitewater/Lewinsky/Impeachment debacle. But when the dust cleared, the president had lied to just about everyone, and the lot of a politician is to endure constant vetting. Acting like a victim every time the press wrote a tough story on them, the Clintons just encouraged irritated journalists to nail them even harder. Isn't it better to pull a McCain and charm them into submission?"

Hillary did become more charming--or at least more accessible to reporters--after losing Iowa.

National Review's Jim Geraghty marshals the evidence:

"In the coming days, you will hear many asking whether Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House fell short because of sexism. And there will be that related question, 'is Obama sexist?' There is really not much evidence that Obama is sexist. There is only, 'Hold on a second, sweetie. We'll hold a press avail,' which he told a reporter at an event outside Detroit. And perhaps his comment to a factory worker in Allentown, Pa., that 'you're gorgeous, you look like you might be a dancer.'

"Okay, there's also the time Obama, after a particularly tough exchange with Hillary, told a crowd, 'You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out.' . . .

"In the interest of fairness, I should note there were a few other such isolated incidents -- columnists decrying her 'frigidity' and 'inability to keep Bill on the porch'; the Washington Post's Robin Givhan writing about her cleavage; Randi Rhodes calling her 'a [expletive] whore'; Maureen Dowd claiming that she 'has turned into Sybil'; MSNBC reporter David Schuster asking whether Chelsea was being 'pimped out'; Katie Couric asking Hillary to confirm that her 'nickname in school was Miss Frigidaire'; cartoonist Pat Oliphant depicting her crying while facing hostile foreign leaders (and Osama bin Laden expressing, 'she's so sensitive, I had no idea!'); Chris Matthews declaring that 'the reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around'; comments from an unnamed Democratic party official that her effort once she fell behind in delegates was 'the Tonya Harding option'; magician Penn Jillette declaring on MSNBC that Obama's success in February was due to Black History Month and Hillary's subsequent success could be attributed to 'White Bitch Month'; an audience member at a debate asking her if she prefers diamonds or pearls; and John Aravosis of AmericaBlog posting pictures of Monica Lewinsky with her mouth wide open every time Hillary irked him.

"But other than that, there is no evidence that sexism played a role in Hillary Clinton's defeat."

In Time, Joe Klein gives HRC her due:

"The Clinton campaign has been a revelation. Her early insistence on a conservative, consultant-driven campaign was revealed as anachronistic and too synthetic in the sparkling intensity of this year's election. Her husband's strengths were humbled by his flaws; his wholesale bitterness overwhelmed his retail campaigning. But the greatest revelation was Hillary Clinton herself--a fabulously skilled candidate and a compelling human being, one of the very rare politicians who found her soul during a campaign, rather than losing it. She needs to find a way to savor that now, without standing in the way of her party's future."

Here is the first of probably a couple thousand polls on race:

"Barack Obama's historic quest for the White House is creating a mix of hope and concern among fellow African-Americans, raising expectations that the presumptive Democratic nominee will be able to improve race relations -- and anxiety over whether his success will ignite a racially divisive fall campaign . . .

"In the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, taken May 30-June 2, 75% of blacks believe Obama as president would improve race relations like no other candidate . . .Seven of 10 blacks predicted that Republicans were likely to make race an issue, while less than one-half of non-Hispanic whites thought so."

A bit of soul-searching from Atlantic blogger Marc Ambinder:

"It might not surprise you to learn that the overwhelming majority of e-mails I receive are from supporters of Barack Obama. That's great, actually. I suspect that there's some correspondence between the demographic that Obama attracts and the demographic that would trust The Atlantic for their political fix.

"But I confess to be slightly uncomfortable with the content of a good portion of those e-mails. Many e-mail correspondents chastise me for departing from an orthodoxy; they cannot understand why or how I could possibly post something that reads as favorable to Hillary Clinton or to John McCain; they treat as provocative any post that originates outside a fairly narrow comfort zone. They seem genuinely confused about what I do and what I don't do."

Among the possible reasons:

"(1) Maybe I am a liberal masquerading as a post-partisan, post-modern journalist/blogger hybrid.

"(2) Maybe the blog's content is generally quite liberal regardless of my intent.

"(3) Maybe I try to sublimate my bias, but it shows up, and it turns away folks who don't share whatever views I seem to have."

Maybe he spends too much time reading his e-mail.