All this talk about a possible Barack/Hillary unity ticket has got me thinking. I can't really see it happening since I can't see any path that would give Hillary more pledged delegates at the convention so how the unity ticket could possibly have her in the #1 spot. I don't think Barack likes or even respects Hillary very much at this point. Since he has some actual personal integrity, I don't think he would pretend to start liking her enough to make a unity ticket possible. So, although it's fun to think about, the reality is almost impossible in my opinion.

There is a another unity ticket that at first blush, seams insane, a McCain-Clinton ticket. However, the more I think about it, the more sense it makes, particularly given the multiple recent positive remarks by Hillary towards McCain. There are clear upsides for both of them. I don't think anyone's VP pick comes with a whole lot of negative baggage, but the positive baggage always seems to count. McCain picking Hillary may further alienate the far right wing a bit but I don't think he's counting on that block to win anyway, and I think they are already being pacified in this regard by Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coultier, encouraging Republicans to vote for Hillary in order to drag out the Democratic primary as long as possible. Voting for her once, makes it much easier to vote for her again. Hillary has been playing along, in my view, which I think will endear her at least a little bit more to those voters. Another huge upside is that it would effectively counter Obama's call for a new, less rancorous, politics.

So McCain picking her, would make a "unity" ticket that may easily beat Obama, particularly after she and McCain have teamed up with daily kitchen sink attacks (I don't think we've seen anything yet) on him clear up to the convention. That ticket will get Republicans, even most of the far-right republicans. It will get a significant amount of independents (that may have been leaning towards Obama before, but then consider McCain-Clinton more moderate. It will get the hard-core Hillary-or-nobody-Democratic voters. I think that ticket could be competitive in every state, and may even win all of them with the possible exceptions of Maryland, DC, Illinois, and Hawaii. The upside for Hillary is power. I think she would rather have the #1 spot but she has already conceded (in not so many words) that she would accept the #2 spot (back when it looked like she would definitely lose TX and possibly OH as well). She probably also suspects that McCain's may not survive 8 more years so its another road to the oval office ... just a little bit longer.