I have to continually ask myself why did Obama select this woman?
Competence, experience, statesmanship.
There are plenty of candidates that possess those qualities, and without the baggage. He clearly chose her for other reasons.
Obama seems to be trying to pull in different groups of people and craft some sort of large coalition. There's a pretty large group of people for whom Hillary is some sort of icon, being that she was the first female presidential candidate with a decent (though not enough, imho) chance of winning. The PUMA folks would represent that in the extreme, but I think it goes a lot more broadly though not as deep as them. Along with the domestic angle, Hillary is pretty huge on the world stage, like it or not. I think those factors, along with competence and experience, are enough to explain it without having to invoke anything sinister.
Obama has Hillary on the team because he recognized his "mandate" is tenuous and fragile at best. This whole thing could easily spin in if things were to start against him.
Things like:
-the economy and financial mess get even worse...
-there is a terrorist attack, first one in a decade.
-war in the middle east.
Without Hillary's cadre, Obama would be hit from both sides, Republican and Hillarians. He'd lose those "Reagan Democrats," the rural crowd in states like PA who voted three-to-one against him in the primary. This could easily be a one-term presidency. All of his traits that were considered positives could easily work against him.
-youth. Considered rejuvenating to the nation, now looks like inexperience.
-political inexperience. At the time desirable, a break from the Beltway crowd, now would be equated with incompetence.
-smiley face, caring, hand out to muslims, Iran, no torture, no Gitmo, no eavesdropping, initially perceived as a welcome change, now would be considered naivete.
The Republican would hammer it home, and the Hillarians would figure their own way to use it against him. The boy wonder, the savior, the sophisticate, would morph into the Boy Blunder, the prima-donna, the devil. Obama is in a precarious situation, and he knows it.
Edited by FuLL meMbeR, 29 January 2009 - 08:30 PM.