I SUSPECT SHE'S AVAILABLE – AT 7:18 P.M. ET:  Bob Woodward, whose book, "Obama's Wars," is just out, is saying what a lot of us are thinking...about 2012.  From The Hill:

A 2012 ticket featuring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the vice presidential candidate is "on the table," veteran journalist Bob Woodward suggested Tuesday.

Woodward, who just released a book detailing some of the most intimate details of internal White House deliberations over the war in Afghanistan, said that Clinton's advisers think it's possible that she would replace Vice President Biden on President Obama's re-election ticket in two years.

"It's on the table," Woodward said in an interview to air this evening on CNN. "Some of Hillary Clinton's advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012."

In other words, they're telling Joe Biden to get out of the way.

Such a ticket would bring together the two former adversaries for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination in a political union that many Democrats had hoped would come to pass in 2008.

There have been murmurs of a potential replacement for Biden in two years, but the White House has generally dismissed such speculation out of hand.

Clinton would bring the kind of additional foreign policy experience to the table that had initially prompted Obama to choose Biden as a running mate in 2008. She's also one of the few administration officials to actually enjoy an increase in popularity since joining the administration.

Her popularity tends to increase when she's out of the public eye.

A Gallup poll suggested that Obama still has the upper hand on Clinton, though, if she were to attempt to reprise the 2008 contest with a primary challenge to the president in 2012.

52 percent of Democrats said they'd choose Obama in a Democratic primary against Clinton, compared to 37 percent who'd vote for the secretary of State.

I suspect that figure is accurate, and is driven partly by the lopsided African-American vote in the Democratic Party. 

Look, Clinton can't run against Obama for the nomination in 2012.  It would split the party, and she'd lose critical black support.  But she could join the ticket, with an eye toward becoming the presidential nominee in 2016.  Even if Obama lost in 2012, a distinct possibility if his poll numbers don't rise, she would probably be untouched.

The key question, of course, is whether Obama wants Hillary on the ticket.   She'd have more star power than the president, which is usually not the way the system works.  And she'd be running her own little presidency, even if the job eluded her in "real life."  In addition, Obama would have to put up with the constant presence of Bill Clinton.

I suspect he'd only name her if he absolutely needs her.

October 5, 2010