Nuclear option

They call it the "dream ticket" - a unity deal, brokered at the Democratic convention in Denver, Colorado, that puts both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on a bumper sticker and, hopefully, in the White House. Now that the mainstream media, Clinton's greatest ally, has finally recognised the legitimacy of Obama's triumph over her grinding and obdurate campaign, the dream ticket has lost any speculative vagueness of Beltway cocktail chat. Now, that dream is a matter of deadly seriousness - because it is now Hillary's dream, and her last remaining option. Make no mistake: going into Denver with a heap of white votes and fortified by the new power of the post-Cheney vice-presidency, Hillary Clinton intends to force her way onto the ticket. If it knows what's good for it, the Democratic party should stop her.

First, Democrats should be clear that they face a woman who has consistently put her own interests and passions above those of her party. For Hillary to retreat back to the Senate, John Kerry-style, or lower her sights, like Nixon, to her home state's governor's mansion, is unpalatable to her and her husband. Given her significant haul in money raised, ballots cast and states won during the primary season, to admit defeat in either fashion would add insult to injured ego. Yet, since Super Tuesday, Hillary has shown no qualms about piling insult after injury on the Democratic party. Party leaders have had to stand by awkwardly as the Clinton machine wore on, pressed into indulgent collusion with a campaign fixated on validating its own vanity. Obama, meanwhile, has been asked - no, required - to pay the price, as Hillary's embarrassingly shameless and bottom-dwelling attacks have led Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing heavyweights to revel for once in the Clintons' dirty work.

All things being equal, it's reasonable for a candidate in Hillary's position to seek the second spot on her party's ticket. But all things are never equal in the with-us-or-against-us world of the Clintons. There, either you're a card-carrying crony, like reviled Clinton cash man Terry McAuliffe, or you're a traitor, like ex-Clinton energy secretary Bill Richardson - who had the audacity to prefer someone else to Hillary and make that preference known. The Clintons have made a long career out of forced loyalty and the threatened settling of scores. Now, backs against the wall, the vice-presidential nomination provides them a perfect opportunity for the psychopolitical blackmail that has so unnaturally maintained their party influence long past its prime.

Second of all, Democrats must recognise that Obama owes Clinton no love, and owes the party nothing in terms of faking it. Nothing could be more outrageous than for the Democratic party to demand of its first African-American nominee to join hands with a loathed, race-baiting opponent in the name of the greater good. The success of Obama's outsider campaign is definitive proof that neither he, the Democratic party, nor the United States has any need for Hillary Clinton. His brain trust is as brainy as hers. His political operators, if anything, are more savvy. And his ability to raise money is more consistently impressive, more broadly based, and plenty cleaner than her own. Hillary would add aggressive puerility to the ticket, not maturity. She would contribute mixed messages about foreign and domestic policy, not clarity. And she would strike a glaring counterpoint to Obama's signature theme of integrity, a daily reminder of the crass and anti-democratic principle that only others, and never she, must make apologies for her ambition.

Though the polls do reflect a possibility (because of her negative campaigning) that at least some current Clinton supporters are likely to consider McCain in the general election, Democrats have a clear choice to make. Either they can reward the woman who chased voters from her own party in the ironic hope of retaining them, or they can grant their nominee the full use of his natural power to make another winning decision - this time, the decision about the person best suited to join him on the ticket. What new fabricated formality must Obama satisfy to earn their trust? What hoop is left to jump through? That Clinton has even caused these questions to be raised reflects the profundity of damage she has already done to her party and its assured nominee. On the campaign trail or in office, what more might come from this calculating aggrandiser, long accustomed to thinking of herself in co-presidential terms, should be left to Democrats' most fertile imaginations.

Third, and lastly, Democrats shouldn't fear that only Hillary has the kind of name recognition or the voter affinity that can best enhance the ticket's electability. Joe Biden has far more experience than Clinton. John Edwards joins partisan credibility with southern appeal. And Jim Webb, as commentators left and right have observed, seems to offer Obama all the advantages that Hillary has tried to command without any of the drawbacks. In fact, Biden, Edwards and Webb are among several instant and obvious answers to the veep question, self-evident substitutes for - or, indeed, improvements upon - Hillary. Democrats don't need to exert an ounce of energy figuring out what to do once they successfully resist the iron will of the Clintons. The VP "problem", never a problem to begin with, solves itself.

The nomination of Barack Obama presents the Democratic party with more than its fair share of historic opportunities, and not just skin deep. Among these - and I think Obama would be the first to agree - are the possibilities which open when Democrats realise that the 2008 campaign is about more than the petty personalities of particular persons. Democrats have a once-in-a-generation chance, sorely needed, to fully refresh their national leadership. This chance has conveniently come at a time when Republican fortunes are at lows unseen since the last days of Herbert Hoover. To accept the GOP's most profitable punching bag onto the national ticket after Democratic voters have plainly rejected her is to sacrifice the party's best hopes to its worst habits. With American citizens of all persuasions crying out for fundamental change in Washington politics, such a failure hurts not just the Democratic party but the country as a whole.

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