One of the most satisfying aspects of Barack Obama's victory Tuesday is that Lanny Davis will eventually drop from the spotlight.

I look forward, enthusiastically, to that moment.

"While Senator Clinton has made clear throughout this process that she will do whatever she can to elect a Democrat to the White House, she is not seeking the vice presidency, and no one speaks for her but her,

Howard Wolfson, one of the campaign's chief strategists, said in a statement provided to The New York Times.

There's really a certain amount of irony in Clinton's spokesman coming out and sayin "no one speak for her but her."

Okay, last time I'll post this, but this is just too damn funny.

McCain said, "We should be able to deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DqR7zis99I

My question; why does the GOP have dehydrated babies? Shouldn't they freeze dry them and then add water whenever it is convenient?

Now, about Hillary Clinton and the VP spot; forgetaboutit. It will not ever, never, not in a millio years, happen. all the navel gazing we do about this is pointless. The Clinton's can't survive the vetting process and Obama WILL vet his VP choice! End of discussion.

Typical Clinton chaos. These folks couldn't organize an orderly picnic, much less a weel-run campaign.

As I've written in a blog entry here at TMPCafe and Dkos, I'm of the opinion that a President Obama would be very smart to publicly offer Mrs. Clinton the VP slot during the Denver convention. He should do it in a way as to make *certain* she accepts.

And then once they take their respective oaths of office, President Obama should close the Vice President's office in the White House and send her off to the Eisenhower building dungeon.

Let her spend her time attending perfunctory events such as funerals for heads of state who have passed away, ribbon cutting ceremonies, and irrelevant photo-ops. While she's doing that, she won't be spending time in the Senate attending and voting in committee and sub-committee hearings. She won't be sponsoring popular legislation which would keep her in the news.

Instead, she'd be doing *nothing*. And, along the way, her power would wane. Without face time on television, who would care about Mrs. Clinton? Without her senate seat in NY, who would care about Mrs. Clinton? Why, we'd get a new Democratic senator from NY while at the same time keeping Mrs. Clinton on-hand for the occasional tie-breaker vote in the Senate.

It's perfect. Thus, I say: Hillary Clinton for Vice President!

The ineptitude of the Clinton's continues, and shows how hollow their mythic political accumen really was/is.

Oh, and as far as hurting her VP chances, that horse already left the barn!

If she didn't want to ruin her VP chances:
- graciously concede on this past Tuesday night
- don't let any surrogates try to bully Obama on it

Too late now. She's screwed this up, like everything else.

Good. This starts the healing.

And people? Stop responding to "blank". Just stop it. When you respond, you make "blank" just a little bit stronger.

Thank you, Mrs Clinton. She really needed to do this. A lot of the pro-Clinton hardliners have just switched their threat from just voting for McCain to voting for McCain if Obama doesn't put Clinton on the ticket. It wasn't helping at all.

Healing begins when HRC uses a national venue to advance the interests of the party over her own. Then her 17 million "supporters" or whatever you call them will get the message and will either sign on or not.

Geez, is this junior high school level or what?
"Hey, Peggy, you're my bestest friend, ""giggle""" go over there and tell that guy I wanna go with him......and let me know what he says......"
"oh, Angie, I can't tell what he said back to Peggy..... Angie.... pleeease, now you go and tell him I don't wanna go with him......I changed my mind."

Uh oh, I guess mr. bill is getting the ol heave ho. Too funny, check this out. His marital status with hillary is "complicated." Too funny.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/bill-clinton-updates-face_b_105467.html

If she really didn't want to have the vice presidency offered to her, sending Lanny Davis out to lobby for offering it to her is the best way to prevent it from happening.

I'm already in forgive and forget, kiss and makeup mode as to everyone in or associated with her campaign. I'm already there as to her and Wolfson (as long as we keep any kissing strictly metaphorical). Terry, well, its like trying to stay mad at Falstaff. Hell, its not inconceivable that I could even get there as to Ickes and Big Dawg someday, as long as both promise to never try to "help" with Obama's campaign without adult supervision.

Penn and Davis? Never.

I'm sure Hillary doesn't want to spend the next six months cleaning up Barack's messes. And she made it crystal clear the other night that she won't stand for his health care bamboozlement. That's her main goal.

He needs her more than she needs him, though his massive ego is resisting.

Do any of y'all ever remember someone make a huge play for the Veep position like this?

Ever? I don't.

Right Tena, you are dead on. And certainly HRC cannot backpedal and claim an historic mandate for the first African-American/female ticket in history when she couldnt even bring herself to acknowledge Obama's ceiling-breaking accomplishment on national tv during her speech, now can she? its all about assessing your place in history, and hillary made a collosal misjudgment. when she said she needed to step back to assess her options it was like she needed a few steps off Everest. You simply dont GET that. Next thing you know youre on the sidelines with the rest of us.

who thinks Hillary will keep her pledged delegates towing the line for her in Denver or will she release them? If she doesn't release them,it sure looks like she has along way to go in her leeting go and being a 100% behind Barack.

My thought is that she will hold onto them..still with the belief of..you never know what could happen.

is there any update on delegate count and endorsements? I can't locate a site with updated information. I want to note when barack goes over the 2209 mark.

Thank you Tena :)

HuffPo has a story up that says that Obama learned that Hillary would suspend her campaign, from the media. She did not call him to congratulate or inform him of her intentions.

A poster, who goes by the name of SanityClaus, claims that it was members of her staff, who contacted her supporters in the Senate and asked them to talk her down.

"Her closest advisors were the ones who called the Senators and begged them to talk her off the ledge yesterday. Clearly they had been unable to talk sense into her." 03:35 PM on 06/05/2008

Anybody seen Robert Redford "swoon" in the "Candidate"? Maybe her mind needs a few weeks' vacation. (She's gonna get longer than that.)

Greg -

"Of course, it's perfectly likely that figures like Davis -- and many other Clinton supporters calling for her to be made Veep -- are acting independently here"

Is this perfectly clear? It seems to me that it is just a likely that his is a campaign being run with the consent of Clinton as it is that it is not with her permission. I'm not saying that Wolfson's statement isn't true by any stretch but how about a little skepticism for what politicians tell us?

There's a much better position awaiting Hillary in an Obama administration: U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.

This is excellent news.

This a smart move by Clinton - for a change.
As long as people are pushing Obama for this, it will never happen. a) human nature to resist b)it will make him look weak.

If the talk dies down and he is looking at other candidates - then in a month or so he does decide she would be a good veep, at least it won't look like he is caving.

I doubt he would but if people keep pushing, he definitely won't.

Lanny is just showing what a sad pathetic idiot that he is. He reminds me of some of the people I went to high school with and it was the end-all of their existence. Then you see them later and their lives suck and they keep trying to relive their high school days.

Thank the diety of your choice . . .

The best news AFAIC is that Obama has enormous balls. He cannot be pressured.

He just consolidated his power base and took control of the Democratic Party as of today, I guess, if not yesterday.

With what seems to me to be lightning speed and a lot of finesse.

I'll quote Petey Pablo here:

"good as a bad of Afghanistan reefer,
I can't fuck with me and y'all can't neither -)

I don't think you can fuck with Barack Obama. Just that simple. He's going to do what he has planned and what he wants to do.

Well Cheney didn't have to make a huge play for the VP slot, he just put himself in the position where he could, after much searching (snark), recommend himself for VP, which seems pretty much in keeping with the underhanded way that he manipulates power.

Oh what the heck. It's way down thread here, few people will see it, so here goes.

Maybe she's saying she's not "seeking" it because she feels it should be handed to her?

What...too far?

Even Hillary can't help him win.
It's going to be a long 4 years until she runs again. Next time, they won't DARE steal the nomination from her.

One of Hillary Clintons’ most ardent supporters,and good friends, Hillary Rosen, wrote in her article yesterday;
==================================================
The life's work of Bill and Hillary Clinton in partnering with so many African Americans uniting our purpose and promoting our mutual issues is as responsible for Barack Obamas’ success as our first African American nominee as anyone. And yet, that joy is being denied for them by themselves. It is so sad.

So, I am also so very disappointed at how she has handled this last week. I know she is exhausted and she had pledged to finish the primaries and let every state vote before any final action. But by the time she got on that podium last night, she knew it was over and that she had lost. I am sure I was not alone in privately urging the campaign over the last two weeks to use the moment to take her due, pass the torch and cement her grace. She had an opportunity to soar and unite. She had a chance to surprise her party and the nation after the day-long denials about expecting any concession and send Obama off on the campaign trail of the general election with the best possible platform. I wrote before how she had a chance for her "Al Gore moment." And if she had done so, the whole country ALL would be talking today about how great she is and give her, her due.

Instead she left her supporters empty, Obamas’ angry and party leaders trashing her. She said she was stepping back to think about her options. She is waiting to figure out how she would "use" her 18 million voters.

But not my vote. I will enthusiastically support Barack Obamas’ campaign. Because I am not a bargaining chip. I am a Democrat.
=================================================
All but Hillarys "lunatic fringe" supporters feel the same. They are more disappointed with her, than with the realization that Hillary lost the nomination. Those of us who are old enough, to have grown up with RAMPANT sexism, will NOT be used in any way, by a man or a woman!

hi guys and gals I'm new here but i would like to say to any Sen. Clinton supporters who constantly trumpet obama's impending defeat should know how they can win in four years w/o the other half of the party? just curious.

Lanny Davis has now joined with VoteBoth to urge that Hillary be picked for VP. The unctuous Mr. Davis is not out there freelancing on this. He would not be doing it if Hillary really wanted it stopped.

Something that is getting very little press:

Senator Clinton's campaign did not contact Senator Obama to give him a heads up that she was going to end her campaign, even though they did notify the press about it. The Obama camp first heard about it from the Media, instead of Senator Clinton making a curtesy call to let Senator Obama know what was about to be made public. Not the behavior of someone that I would want on my team.

Just another thought;

How does Hillary plan to ensure "respect for the people that voted for me, and I want to make sure that their voices are heard" if she suppresses them as bargaining chips? Does she really think that they will all coalesce to being "suspended" as part of her campaign, until she tells them what to do?

What say you Hillary supporters? Are you out there without your own voice, and intellect? Will you sit on your hands awaiting direction from Hillary? Even if you feel like it(if I were you, I would), will you REALLY vote for 4 more years of Bush? Will you not vote at all, and "give your vote to McCain that way? Will you vote Democrat and wait until Hillary has another opportunity to run? Will you look for another female candidate to represent you in the future?

Hi: What I was referring to was a read on Bloomberg: "Obama Campaign will consider helping Clinton pay off $20million in Debt".--Barack Obama's Campaign is open to paying off some of the more than $20 in debt accrued by defeated Clinton etc.
Even if this "assistance" is through Fund Raisers she doesn't deserve a dime of it, and she has been insidious in prying it out of him. Considering the scourge she has been in trying to pull Barack down, she deserves contempt and nothing more--that includes Hill Bill.

demconwatch is running an update in their posts. They have said y'day that they won't be updating the side-bars.