Clinton/Obama ticket. Like I said. Now the media joins in.

By Anna Quindlen
Newsweek
July 23, 2007 issue –

TO: HRC
RE: VP

Well, senator, with the “Sopranos”-influenced video gone viral, you managed to convince millions of Americans that you do have a sense of humor. With the continuing massaging of your position on Iraq, you’ve managed to convince a significant number of liberals that you have a sense of urgency about the war. And with the most recent poll results, you must have a sense of yourself as the front runner.

Now it’s time to show that you have a sense of history, a sense that this election is bigger than just one woman’s ambitions. Make it your business to persuade Barack Obama to be your running mate.

Conventional thinkers like to make this sound risky, pairing a woman and a black man on the ticket. But it’s not as wild as it sounds. The calculus of choosing someone for the second spot is always, first and foremost, whether the choice hurts your chances. The answer here is no. Anyone who would be put off by Obama isn’t going to vote for you in the first place.

The second question is what you gain. The way in which that has been interpreted has usually been tediously predictable, and has centered on geographic balance. That’s how John Kerry of Massachusetts wound up with Southerner John Edwards.

—snip—

It’s not simply that with one fell swoop you would solidify the two largest blocs of Democratic support, but that the historic nature of the pairing would galvanize the race and make any Republican slate seem so same-old. Every politician likes to talk about a new era. The day the Clinton-Obama ticket is announced would really be one for the history books.