The Future of Hillary

A lot of people have been trying to wrap their heads around the question of why Obama would offer her State and why she would accept. He has plenty of other qualified folks, she undercut a lot of his ideas on foreign policy, and of course Bill. She has a plum Senate seat for life, could potentially be in line for a Supreme Court seat, and still wants to be President some day.

So here is my theory. First (and most important to the plausibility of this), Joe Biden will be 74 in 2016. This means that unlike Gore or Bush 1 he is not in line for the Party throne. Unlike Bush 2, obama is not just a narcissist trying to please daddy, and so I expect him to be aware of this. As a result I expect Biden to be a one term VP.

Based on the power of incumbency, being picked VP will make that person the far away front runner in 2016 on the democrat side. Obviously the risk for Clinton is getting tied to a failed president. But by early 2012 the structural outline of the race should be pretty clear and she can avoid a bruising fight if she wants to.

Realistically though, there is a good shot the economy will be turning around in late 2011 and (more importantly) be on track for strong growth through 2016 assuming the usual business cycle still persists.

The big upshot of this deal for obama is that he ties the fortunes of the Clintons to his success and transforms them from a potential headwind into a full force gale at his back. Ju jitsu at its best.