Morning Thoughts: Polls and Hillary Clinton

Three things this morning:

1. Nate Silver is probably right about why the election is tightening. (As opposed to the implications of racism being spewed by Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough on MSNBC right now). The extra attention to foreign policy favors McCain, even though Obama is making up ground on that issue.

The upside for Obama though is that after this trip is over, he’s going to spend the rest of the election talking about the economy, while presumably retaining any foreign policy gains he made on this trip. My pointis that the issue focus can change, but the underlying dynamics tend not to, barring major gaffes or major positive moments.

In short, I think this is a short term necessary evil for greater gains for Obama later. (Barring some major other gaffe by him or someone involved in his campaign.)

2. In the counterintuitive thought of the day, does this foreign trip open the door for Hillary Clinton as VP?

The major problem in the past has been that Obama would be overshadowed. But now that he’s had a trip with some (OK, many) talking about presumptive he has seemed, Clinton would no longer overshadow Obama, and indeed it would probably be perceived as a really unselfish move by Obama. Moreover, it would be am implicit shift back to economic issues, while ignoring any questions about whether she was qualified to be President.

There’s still problems, of course: the two are said to not really get along. And that’s a major, major problem. Also, it would undermine Obama’s message of change. But I think the idea makes a lot more sense today than it did a week ago. Obama has enough presidential cache that being overshadowed is probably the least of VP concerns.

That said, supposedly the VP search team is completely separated from the political wing of Obama’s campaign. So this might just end up being hot air.

3. Don’t forget to listen to our interview on Sirius this afternoon. Or if you don’t get Sirius, check out any of our podcasts. We’ll be doing one at some point this weekend.