Smoke-filled rooms have a bad reputation. Yes, they gave us Warren Harding, but they also gave us Harry Truman. The only way out now for Democrats is to light up the cigars, close the door and force a Kennedy-Johnson ticket.
The question becomes, who gets to be Kennedy? Surely Barack Obama, who has inspired so many, including, poignantly, JFK’s daughter Caroline, with the similarity. And Hillary, with her sharp elbows, my-way-or-the-highway style and even ham-handed speaking, resembles LBJ. Maybe she even has some of the better angels of his nature, although we would pray she didn’t reach the Oval Office through the same tragic circumstances.
But ah, my foes and oh, my friends, that won’t work. Obama must play the role of the outsized senator from Texas.
A brief digression: Sentiment clouds the memory of John Kennedy’s actual record, including in the election of 1960. The election was the closest in American history, and it’s an open question as to whether the Democrats stole the contest, especially with hanky-panky in Richard J. Daley’s Cook County and LBJ’s Texas. In perhaps his best service to the nation, Nixon chose not to demand a recount, even though the evidence of fraud was powerful. In other words, JFK did not walk to the presidency by acclamation.
Kennedy and Johnson fought a brutal fight for the Democratic nomination in 1960 (Hubert Humphrey and Stuart Symington were road kill), but in the end Kennedy won on the first ballot. What happened next is a bit of a mystery, but Johnson became the vice presidential nominee. Perhaps Kennedy offered it as a courtesy, never imagining LBJ would accept. I am more inclined to believe the bosses forced the marriage — the two men loathed each other — in order to have the best chance against a popular Nixon-Lodge ticket. LBJ could deliver a South that was suspicious of the, dare we say it, the elitist senator from Massachusetts.
I’m sorry to say that now Obama must be Johnson and accept the vice presidency. The reasons become clear in an article in today’s New York Times:
Just when it seemed that the Democratic Party was close to anointing
Mr. Obama as its nominee, he lost yet again in a big general election
state, dragged down by his weakness among blue-collar voters, older
voters and white voters. The composition of Mrs. Clinton’s support —
or, looked at another way, the makeup of voters who have proved
reluctant to embrace Mr. Obama — has Democrats wondering, if not
worrying, about what role race may be playing.
Obama wins many states that won’t vote Democrat in the general election. Clinton wins the white voters and big states that will be essential to victory in November. John Judis argues that Obama is being pigeonholed as the "new McGovern." The new voters Obama is bringing in can’t counter, especially, his lack of appeal among white women and older white voters. Moreover, these Hillary voters will bolt to McCain, while Obama could persuade his movement to back a Clinton-Obama ticket.
Like Johnson, he would be relegated to purgatory, something Hillary would do with relish. But he would live politically to fight again, perhaps as a sitting vice president, when Rev. Wright, bittergate, etc. are long forgotten.
I say this with no pleasure. It’s a reality that speaks ill of America, or at least much of it. The media will deny it, because they love the idea of Obama. The same myopia comes from educated liberals. But the proof has been in the Ohio and Pennsylvania pudding. I think Obama is a transformative figure, and could make a great president. Hillary has only a middling chance of winning and at times is outright despicable. But the stakes are too high for the nation not to try a winning ticket.