Barack Obama Indicates Gore Will Have Senior Position In His Administration, Promises To Get Tough With Republicans

If you’ve been dreaming of an Obama-Gore ticket, you can wake up now. Barack Obama responded to the inquiry by saying:

“I can promise you that as president I will have him involved in our administration in a very senior capacity in his role…having won the Nobel peach prize and an Oscar that being Vice President again would be probably a step down for him.”

Obama tried to help his electability cause by also bringing up the Republicans, noting that despite the strong attacks they will likely launch against him, he will respond immediately, forcefully and truthfully. Obama quipped:

“I played basketball and I’m skinny but the people I play with will tell you I don’t mind going down low and throwing elbows.”

As discussed in this week’s podcast, politically, Obama needs to continue his offensive against Republican counterparts in order to draw their fire to reduce the inevitability perception of Hillary Clinton and also to demonstrate his general election skills. One of Clinton’s strengths as a candidate is that Democrats believe she is best capable of handling the harsh attacks that are likely to come in the general election.

If Obama hopes to get anywhere in the coming months, he’s going to need to escalate his criticism of Republican rivals. This is not mutually exclusive with his “politics of hope.” He doesn’t need to resort to pointless or erroneous criticisms, he could use this as an opportunity to take on his rivals substantively and serve as an exemplar for the new kind of politics he promises to bring if elected. I’m not entirely sure that’s going to happen though, given his recent remarks about not paying much attention to Mitt Romney. Although, I do think the Obama campaign handled Romney’s recent Obama-Osama gaffe well, something about the ‘I don’t pay much attention’ line irritates me (which many candidates use). Part of the problem with the current state of politics is that simply pretending the other side doesn’t exist seems needlessly anti-intellectual. But I digress…