Clinton interest in VP complicates Obama's task

Now that Hillary Clinton has endorsed Barack Obama, the biggest campaign favor she could do him would be to declare that she does not want to be the Democratic nominee for vice president.

That might ease, although it certainly wouldn't end, the pressure by Clinton partisans to get her the consolation spot on the ticket. That push is a problem for Obama as he tries to solidify the party and seeks to win the support of women who backed Clinton.

There's no indication that Sen. Clinton is about to stand aside. Her spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said she is not seeking the vice presidency. But neither is she stopping the push of supporters who think she should have it. Bill Clinton is said to be among them, although he is not making the case in public.

That's sensible because nobody campaigns successfully to be vice president - at least nobody ever has. Should that change in 2008 because of pressure from the Clintonites, it would damage Obama's image and his campaign.

He hasn't said a lot about the vice presidential nomination beyond the obvious, that it is the first major decision a presidential nominee makes. That's a particularly important test for a candidate who needs to demonstrate that he is strong and decisive, not one to yield to pressure.

Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, an ardent Clinton supporter before Obama won, said that to put pressure on him to choose her now probably "would have the opposite effect."

Obama has said that Hillary Clinton obviously would be on anybody's short list of vice presidential prospects. He has appointed two men and a woman, Caroline Kennedy, to screen potential nominees for him. He told reporters that he is going to do it right, and not in the press. "The next time you hear from me about the vice presidential selection process will be when I have selected a vice president," he said.

By then, the guessing game will make his short list a long one. The rumor list also will add names to the speculation about a running mate for Republican Sen. John McCain. That's part of the VP game. Every name mentioned is a politician flattered.

For Sen. Clinton to stand aside from that process by saying she doesn't want second place on the ticket does not mean that Obama couldn't choose her as his running mate. Supposedly reluctant candidates have taken the vice presidency spot before.

Before endorsing Obama on June 7 and urging her supporters to work for his election, she was quoted as telling New York congressional colleagues that she is "open to the possibility" of running for vice president. In VP maneuvering, that amounts to an invitation to be asked.

Add to that the argument that Clinton advocates are said to be making: that she has earned the vice presidential nomination by coming so close in her race with Obama. She came close indeed, a fact overlooked by the detractors who argue that she should have conceded the race sooner. But a close second does not earn second place on the ticket.

Presidential nominees often have chosen defeated rivals for vice president. And often, they have not. McCain would be vice president now if George W. Bush had opted to pick his challenger.

The first President George Bush was Ronald Reagan's closest contestant in 1980 when he was picked for vice president, although not nearly as close as Sen. Clinton ran this year.

But Bush himself did not look to his challengers when he was nominated for president in 1988, nor did the current President Bush or Vice President Al Gore in 2000.

So there are traditions and there are exceptions. This is an exceptional campaign, contested by the African-American who won and the woman who came so close, firsts in each case. Now Clinton has a constituency Obama needs in the Nov. 4 election, and some of her loyalists will be difficult to deliver. A place on the ticket might win them over.

But it also would galvanize the anti-Hillary crowd. There are polls indicating that she might turn off some independent voters Obama needs against McCain. There is no survey that signals clearly whether Clinton on the ticket would be a net plus or a net minus.

And she would come with a constituent who might be a problem. Her husband. Bill Clinton blurted some things that were no help to her cause, and if her campaign couldn't keep him on message and in line, Obama's would have even more trouble doing so.

Any arrangement that did put her on the ticket would have to include an understanding of her role and Bill Clinton's should Obama be elected. Clinton is not one to stay offstage for long.

In 1980, when there was a television-spawned convention boom for former President Gerald R. Ford to be Reagan's running mate, the two men discussed how to make it work and realized that it would not. Reagan was not interested in yielding authority in some sort of co-presidency with Ford.

This match could be as unworkable.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Walter Mears reported on presidential campaigns for The Associated Press from 1960 until his retirement in 2001.