Getting Rid of Poison Billary

What is Barack Obama supposed to do now that there is little sign that Hillary Clinton will openly “concede” without being offered the Vice-Presidency, to the point of organizing “No-bama” chants at a very public appearance?

How can he get rid of the lady, and of her big-mouthed, inconvenient, gaffe-prone, press-hated, reputation-tearing, ladies’ favorite anger-bag of a husband?

For were Obama to accept Ms Rodham as his VP candidate, he would appear weak, unable to stand on his own, way too ready to compromise with somebody that after all he has been unable to shrug off. If instead, all the purring from the Clinton campaign about her readiness to have a shot as VP were ignored or rebuffed, then Obama would appear weak, cast adrift among college-educated Americans with not a single Latino or poor White in sight.

(Perhaps up to 27% of Democrats do not want to vote for Obama…isnt’ there a saying about the mother of the idiots being always pregnant?)

All this campaigning by Hillary and Bill Clinton has then turned the couple into a “poison pill”, the best thing that happened to McCain since Giuliani started excelling at foot-shooting practice. As things stand now, Hillary Clinton is indispensible, and the Democratic Party cannot go anywhere she doesn’t like it to go.

But in her latest moment of glory, there are also all the reasons to make her irrelevant.

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It is good practice in people management to identify the resources that one “cannot do without”…in order to get rid of them.

Anybody able to maneuver themselves into an “indispensable” position is in fact too loose a center of power, a practical nuisance for everybody around, a threat for the cohesion of the group and an inordinate risk were the person to move to a different job or disappear from view for any reason (eg due yet another sex scandal involving Mr C).

And one should not disregard the possibility of a leadership challenge at every single minute that passes

(I am sure Hillary Clinton is dreaming of the Party delegates begging her in Denver this coming August,to become the Presidential Candidate by acclamation. Can’t anybody find a picture of Obama with a prostitute, a lover, a wad of dirty cash, cocaine on his nose? Shaking hands with OJ Simpson? Praying at a mosque? Having dinner with Iran’s Ahmadinejad? Anything would do…)

That’s why if anybody is indispensable, they must be dispensed with asap, instead of letting things hang by a thread, with a possible major unmanageable crisis looming every day in an atmosphere of mutual distrust and weak leadership,

(How to get rid of somebody that one cannot ged rid of? By definition, it may look impossible. But that’s really never the case: US society would not collapse were Hillary Clinton to become a hermit tomorrow. If one is “indispensable”, dispensing of them will be painful, but a group exercise, that will inspire the best effort of the rest of the team)

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Obama can free himself from Billary by choosing one of three options: (a) going hard, immediately nominating somebody else as VP candidate; (b) going safe, doing nothing in the hope few will care about an also-ran with no hope to be anybody; (c) going soft, openly leaving all possibilities open, just in case, with no actual intention of choosing Hillary for the Vice-Presidency.

The choice is a matter of long-term political strategy. It can be argued that (a) is a sign of weakness, but the sooner the tooth is pulled out, the sooner the pain will go (and the more time there will be for campaigning against McCain). Option (b) needs plenty of nerve and plenty of friends in the media. Option (c) is an absolute gamble, and only the strongest and most determined candidate should think about it.

Options b and c assume that the Clintons will make a nuisance of themselves, with Bill growling too much, and Hillary squeaking too often, so that among the general nausea only their staunchest supporters will remain loyal. And so on and so forth.

(Personally I would choose option b but only after preparing a massive media campaign, in order to bury any Clinton news item by sheer force of numbers)

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Obviously, the above presumes Obama can show enough toughness (and callousness) so as to be his own antidote against Poison Billary. That’s something still open to question, a fact that in itself may be a symptom of the same inability to find that single final political punch that could have stopped all this Democrat squabbling long time ago.

Barack Obama can still choose Hillary Clinton as VP Candidate. But if that happens, nobody should kid themselves by talking of an “Obama Presidency”.

At the White House, the one with the trousers wouldn’t be the current junior Senator from Illinois.