McCain-Clinton '08? Obama-Hagel?
pittsburghlive.com
By Lanny J. Davis*
Sunday, January 21, 2007
As the presidential election year nears, one candidate, a shoo-in for his party's nomination, has an obvious choice for running mate. Yet he also senses the uniqueness of the moment. So he makes a risky decision: He asks a leader of the opposition to run for vice president alongside him, forming the first bipartisan ticket in modern U.S. presidential history.
This is no fantasy. It's the decision Abraham Lincoln made when, running for re-election in 1864, he asked his Republican vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, to quit the ticket in favor of the highly partisan Democrat Andrew Johnson.
Lincoln's experiment tragically was cut short six weeks after his 1865 inauguration. But if ever there was a time to give it a second try, it's now.
Today's national unease and rabid partisanship -- so similar to the circumstances of 1864 -- raise the challenge for someone to form a bipartisan ticket in 2008. The lingering trauma of 9/11, the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism call for an administration open to bipartisan solutions to the crises that confront the country.
Last year's congressional elections showed that voters are tired of the partisan gridlock in Washington. They want some solutions from liberals and others from conservatives. That's the new politics of our age, as exemplified by Sen. Joe Lieberman's re-election in Connecticut as an "independent" Democrat. Though he has voted mostly with his fellow Democrats over the years, Lieberman is open to both liberal and conservative approaches.
The most important reason for a bipartisan presidency in 2008 is the need to find solutions to the war in Iraq and to avoid delaying the end of significant U.S. involvement over fear of partisan recriminations. Solving the dilemma of Iraq -- how to get U.S. troops out of harm's way in a civil war yet not leave behind a rogue state dominated by terrorists -- will require bipartisan effort and support.
A bipartisan administration is also essential for enacting new taxes. Most responsible political leaders in both parties know -- though few are willing to admit it publicly -- that there is no way to pay for the war in Iraq, even as it winds down, and reduce the deficit while also addressing health care, energy independence, global warming and Social Security other than by raising taxes. Only a bipartisan presidency pushing leaders on both sides of the aisle can make it possible to tackle that issue honestly.
There are any number of provocative possibilities for a bipartisan ticket in 2008. Imagine the buzz if Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Clinton committed to making the other vice president in the event that either won the election.
Pick any combination of other names in the current field of potential candidates: Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Chuck Hagel; Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Republican Mitt Romney; Democrat John Edwards and Republican Michael Bloomberg; Democrat Bill Richardson and Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Any of these bipartisan pairings, in any permutation, would create a stir -- and a dynamite ticket.
I'm betting that either Democrats or Republicans -- or both -- will nominate a bipartisan ticket in 2008 or commit to a bipartisan presidency after the election. And I'll wager that if only one of the parties does it, that party will win.
*Lanny J. Davis, special counsel to President Bill Clinton from 1996 to 1998, is the author of "Scandal: How 'Gotcha' Politics Is Destroying America" (Palgrave Macmillan). |
