KEY POINTS:
As an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama may contemplate considering vanquished Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Lincoln was famed for looking past personal feelings and including rivals within his Administration. It is an approach that finds favour with those who envisage a "dream
ticket" of Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton sweeping past Republican candidate John McCain and into the White House. But it is an option that Mr Obama would do well to resist.
A reasonable short-term case can be made for the ticket. During a tumultuous five-month campaign, which ended yesterday when Mr Obama sealed the Democratic nomination, both candidates demonstrated a strong appeal to certain sections of the populace. Mr Obama's youth, studiousness, liberal instincts and rhetorical brilliance galvanised university-educated and black voters. Mrs Clinton, the former First Lady who once seemed almost certain to be the first female President, proved popular with blue-collar workers and Hispanics, especially in the major industrial states. Almost all of the biggest primaries - the likes of New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania - fell to her. A "dream ticket", so the theory goes, would not only marry those voting sectors but repair rifts in the party.
But as enticing as that prospect is to some Democrats, it overlooks the reality if an Obama-Clinton ticket triumphed in November. Within the walls of the White House, Mr Obama would be constantly looking over his shoulder at not only his Vice-President but her husband, a two-term President possessing an intimate knowledge of Washington's workings. There would be intrigue of Shakespearean proportions. It is inconceivable that Bill Clinton would be content to remain in the background, just as he was unable to exercise distance and judgment during his wife's campaign. If one thing doomed Mrs Clinton, it was probably her husband's sporadic outbursts. None played worse than his suggestion, after the South Carolina primary, that Mr Obama was a "routine" black candidate like Jesse Jackson. This alienated the black vote, one of Mrs Clinton's original strengths.
There was bad blood on the Democrat campaign trail almost to the end. This tested the magnanimity of even Mr Obama. He will also recall that, at the start of the campaign, the Clintons regarded him as an upstart and of no importance. Further, it is hardly insignificant that there are important policy differences between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton, perhaps most notably in the area of healthcare reform. But, probably most importantly, there is a generational issue. The appeal of the 46-year-old Mr Obama lies in his theme of change. The Clintons hark back to the 1990s.
This distinction will also be Mr Obama's chief weapon against Mr McCain, a conservative who will inevitably be tarred with the unpopularity that has accrued during President George W. Bush's eight years of foreign policy calamity and economic mismanagement. The 71-year-old will draw heavily on his experience and military service to try to counter this. Already, he has accused Mr Obama of being a "young man" with "no experience or knowledge or judgment".
But in a country harbouring a keen desire for change, there seems little prospect of Mr McCain defeating the Democrat challenger. His age will surely be a sizeable disadvantage. Mr Obama is strong favourite to capture the White House. And he knows he can achieve that with or without Mrs Clinton. To name her as his vice-presidential running mate would be to carry Lincoln-style inclusiveness to an unnecessary and ill-judged extreme.
