If there was ever a media narrative that deserved to have a stake driven through its heart, it's the one about Hillary as candidate for the vice presidency.
That the media are even discussing it is embarrassing to the practice of journalism and thoughtful news analysis. She's an obvious poor choice. Who would be president? Obama would be elected, Hillary would act entitled and Bill would still think he is. If Obama and his team don't already know this, they are nowhere near as good as we'd like to believe.
I can explain better after the jump.
Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and to an extent, Howard Fineman, were flogging this horse a little too hard last night on MSNBC. They were suggesting that Hillary is justifying having her hat in the ring for VP on the basis of the 18 million people that voted for her. They were almost hinting at extortion on Hillary's part suggesting she could threaten not to release her voters or her pledged delegates unless she got what she wanted, which, according to unnamed (heh) sources "highly placed inside the Clinton campaign" was the vice presidency. As though the voters and delegates were somehow held hostage by her? As though the people that voted for her in New Hampshire three months ago haven't changed their minds?
Frankly, I wish one of the analysts last night would have offered a dissenting view, but they didn't. Buchanan is all-Hillary-all-the-time; Rachel Maddow unfortunately continues like she's scared of the Clintons and is ready to believe all the worst about them; and David Gregory and Keith Olbermann, both of whom I thought would be game to play Devil's Advocate, just seemed to shut their mouths and not say anything.
Here's the problem with the TV analysis, as I see it:
If the talking heads let Hillary fade into the background, they lose a story line that is likely keeping viewers tuned in. It's against all of their interests, financially speaking, and for guys like Matthews and Russert, who love the stuff so much they'd do it for free (well, I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean), they'd get bored. We're only in June, the conventions are in August, and the fall campaign doesn't begin in earnest until Labor Day. What is there to talk about for the next two months? Make no mistake, they have absolutely looooooveed that the Democratic nomination fight lasted through all 50 states.
So Hillary, by not conceding, has given them an opportunity to extend the revenue stream.
The reality is that her VP bid has a very, very short shelf life. Russert and Matthews are right about one thing. The people that did vote for her are all she has left. What they didn't say, but probably will soon, is that as time passes, and attention turns to Obama v. McCain, the imperative to consider Hillary will erode. Obama will need to let that happen by postponing his decision.
If McCain is smart, he''ll announce his VP ASAP, because that would pressure Obama to make his VP decision sooner than he would wish, at a time when Hillary is still on peoples' minds and poisoning the water.
So who will he pick?
Well, that is a story for another day.