Obama Names Patti Solis Doyle VP's Chief of Staff

Clinton fired her during the primary campaign and they reportedly are not on good terms. HuffPo:

One thing the move does suggest, insiders believe, is that Hillary Clinton's chances of being tapped for the vice presidency are now slim to nil.

A Clintonite called it the "biggest fuck you I have ever seen in politics."

I'm not sure how smart this is politically, but I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

UPDATE: Oh, and I find it strange that Clinton supporters are so concerned with politeness after her scorched earth campaign against Obama.

Obama's Appalachian Problem

Obama's problem is less with "working-class whites" than it is with Appalachia. A Daily Kos contributor has presented great analysis with two striking graphics. Below is a map of Appalachia and a map of counties (in purple) where Clinton won 65% of the vote.

Since this second map was created, West Virginia and Kentucky have voted and would be almost completely purple.

As you can see, Obama has been trounced mostly in Appalachia, as well as the hills of the Ozarks and the Texas Hill Country.

Yes, this area has many working-class whites, but there are plenty of working-class whites in the rest of the country. Working-class whites dominate the West, where Obama has regularly beaten Clinton.

Obama's main weakness is in Appalachia. The ideal VP candidate would help Obama with voters in this geographic region and those voters like them around the country.

18 Million

People who support Clinton for VP keep pointing out that 18 million voted for her. First, Obama will be able to get the votes of nearly all of those without Clinton. Second, there's no guarantee that all 18 million will vote for Obama with her as VP. Third, it will take over 60 million votes to win in November. Clinton repels way more potential voters than she brings.

As Carter pointed out, combining against you the 50% of the electorate that will never vote for a Clinton with those that will never vote for a black man named Barack Hussein Obama is not a winning strategy.

Rendell

It looks like he's realized that now Obama can make him VP, not Clinton:

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell – one of Hillary Clinton’s strongest supporters – today warned her: “There’s no bargaining. You don’t bargain with the Presidential nominee. Even if you’re Hillary Clinton and you have 18 million votes, you don’t bargain.”

In an exclusive interview with NY1 Political Anchor Dominic Carter, Rendell added that Obama would have to be an “enormously big person” to pick Clinton as his running mate and that Clinton sometimes “couldn’t help but upstage” Obama on a joint ticket.

Rendell also said former President Bill Clinton could greatly complicate things if his wife was the Vice Presidential nominee.

“The Obama campaign would have to make strict rules, you know, about what President Clinton could and could not do during the campaign… For example, the Obama campaign would have to control his schedule; where he would go into, what states,” Rendell tells Carter.

“You know, normally politicians don’t want to be outshone. Well you know you’ve got Bill Clinton lurking in the background. But Hillary Clinton, a very charismatic figure for many Americans — generally a lot of politicians don’t like to put somebody like that on the ticket. You know rule one for the vice president is make sure you never upstage the president, right? It’s rule one. You know, Hillary Clinton in some ways couldn’t help but upstage, even if she was trying not to”

Clinton's Speech

No concession?

Republicans were right. She really is intolerable. This woman can never be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. She's mentally and emotionally unfit.

Obama Clinches

According to AP.

Don't Pick Hillary

Hillary is interested in VP.

She brings nothing to the ticket. It would be doing her a favor. If she had quit before March, maybe. Not now. Obama doesn't owe her anything.

UPDATE: I fixed the link.

More Hillary Nonsense

Not only is her claim of victory based on the popular vote contrary to the rules that both campaigns entered the race under, unfairly inclusive of Michigan and Florida, and problematic for the reason that some primaries are open while others are closed, it is an outright lie to even claim a popular vote victory.

This is a special kind of chutzpah.

Thanks to Clinton

Obama will have plenty of experience dealing with sociopaths before the general election.

Florida and Michigan

I'm watching the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting.

If the Democrats aren't going to stick to the rules they established, they must seat no more than half of the delegates and split them evenly between Clinton and Obama. That is the only fair and reasonable way to seat any delegates from those two states. Any other decision will be unfair to one candidate and/or the 48 states that obeyed the rules.

This is not Florida in 2000. First, the Democratic party, not the voters, gets to decide who the nominee is. This idea that voters have some right to determine the primary nominee is erroneous. Second, the people of Florida chose to break the rules knowing that their votes wouldn't be counted.

Decisions whether to campaign or vote were based on the rules in place. What about all of the people who didn't vote because they were told it would be a waste of time? Seating Florida and Michigan would disenfranchise them because turnout was lower in Florida and Michigan than in the other primaries.

Clinton's calculated reversal on this is off-putting, but her rhetoric is despicable. It's one thing to do what you have to do to win. It's quite another to claim that an adverse decision is anti-democratic and question the legitimacy of your party's eventual nominee.