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04 May 2008 07:58 pm

Team Of Rivals?

Where does the Democratic race go from here? I think out loud here. Bottom line:

It is for many in the Obama camp an unthinkable thought. But politics is sometimes the art of adjusting today to what seemed inconceivable yesterday. I'm talking about the possibility — and the powerful logic — of a unity Obama-Clinton ticket for the Democrats.

I know, I know. But one thing we have learned is that the Clintons can do damage to Obama and are prepared to:

The old political adage that you should keep your friends close but your enemies closer therefore seems appropriate. Clinton will not be running for president in 2012 if she is vice-president in 2009. The same could not be said if she were consigned back to the Senate to lick her wounds and plot her future.

And there's a way to frame such a grim compromise in a way that resonates with the message Obama has been conveying from the beginning:

His model in this should be Abraham Lincoln. What Lincoln did, as Doris Kearns Goodwin explained in her brilliant book, "Team Of Rivals," was to bring his most bitter opponents into his cabinet in order to maintain national and party unity at a time of crisis. Obama — who is a green legislator from Illinois, just as Lincoln was — could signal to his own supporters in picking Clinton that he isn't capitulating to old politics, he is demonstrating his capacity to reach out and engage and co-opt his rivals and opponents.

Done deftly, picking Clinton could even resonate with Obama's supporters as a statesmanlike gesture, a sign of the kind of reconciliation he wants to achieve at home and abroad and energize his own party for the fall. It is consonant with his core message: that he can unify the country in a way few other politicians can. It would even help heal the gulf that has opened up between the Clintons and black voters in this campaign. It's win-win all round.

I hesitate to propose this, but I do think it is now worth actively considering for the first time in this campaign. The test of a president is his ability to recognise his own weaknesses and adjust to them. If he can do that while strengthening his core message, and make his own election close to unstoppable, what would hold him back?

The full column is here.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

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