Pride

Here are two questions from a conversation I had the other night. If Senator Clinton loses the Democratic nomination to Senator Obama, 1) Does he then ask her to run as his Vice President, and if so, 2) Does she accept the position?

I don’t claim to be a political aficionado. I mean, I am a huge fan of both of the Senators, I read both of their autobiographies, a good amount of recent articles about them and believe I have a pretty strong interest in politics, at least more so than most of my peers. I do not however follow the race close enough to know what their platforms are, what they have been debating about and, the race for the nomination aside, if they truly respect one another. That being said, it is hard to make a determination that if Obama wins, which is looking more and more likely, who he picks for his running mate and how much consideration he would give to Senator Clinton.

For the sake of this posting, lets say that he does, and Mrs. Clinton is forced to make a decision about whether or not to accept. In the aforementioned conversation, I made the statement that she would definitely accept. My first reason being that she is all about making herself the biggest feminine icon possible and in that regard Vice President of the United States, is a much more powerful position than Senator of New York, plain and simple. Not forgetting to mention that she would be making history as the first female Vice President.

The second reason I think she would accept somewhat relates to the first, and is an interesting point. In one of the first episodes of The West Wing, the NBC drama about the President of the United States and his staff, the President in the show played by Martin Sheen, has just won his parties’ nomination and is shown at his closest competitors’ campaign headquarters inquiring if he would be willing to be his running mate. The character, John Hoynes, is clearly upset about losing to Sheen’s character, Bartlett, and initially denies the request. The denial seemed to be rooted in disappointment about the loss, but also in pride because Hoynes, thinking he should have won, did not want to potentially spend the next four years constantly reminded of the loss, as opposed to looking at the positive aspects of being Vice President.

Thinking about this phenomena, I feel that it is inherently male. I made the statement in my conversation that even though Mrs. Clinton would be pissed off that she lost the nomination, that mainly because she is a woman, she would be better equipped to ignore pride and accept the spot on the ticket, for the advancement of her career, history potential, etc. The person I was speaking with disagreed with me about this, though. She thought that this concept of pride was an individual one instead of one specific to all women. Meaning that because Mrs. Clinton was Mrs. Clinton, this would dictate her decision to accept the nomination and NOT because Mrs. Clinton was a woman.

In the end, I think if she is offered the Vice Presidential ticket she takes it, pride be dammed, but it is still interesting to think about how someone else woman or man handles the same situation…