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Opinion: The crystal ball is foggy but ...

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Not that Democrats will be seeking his advice, but Rudy Giuliani has pretty much decided who will make up that party’s ticket next year: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In that order.

‘I suspect it will be Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama,’ Giuliani told the Associated Press’ Mike Glover while he campaigned in Iowa today. ‘Their views are pretty much the same.’ Of course, it’s in the interest of Giuliani, who polls well as the most electable Republican in a general election, to envision the strongest possible Democratic ticket today.

Many Republicans, however, agree with Giuliani, perhaps out of fear. Current polls indicate Republicans as a group are likely to have a tough time next year, if the unpopularity of the GOP president and the Iraq war continue. But as columnist Charles Krauthammer opined the other day, ‘Americans aren’t antiwar. They’re anti-losing wars.’

If somehow the trickle of positive signs from Iraq became a dominant theme in the next 15 months or if there was another homeland terrorist attack, things could change dramatically. But at the moment, this far out, a 2008 Democratic ticket combining the first female president and the first African American vice president would seem a formidable one for any combination of Republicans to overcome.

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But before the GOP waves the flag of surrender prematurely, it should read the...

piece in today’s New York Times on the newfound frosty relationship between Obama and Clinton, who once helped raise money for the Illinois senator’s first campaign. As The Times’ Jeff Zeleny points out, when the cameras focus on the pair onstage, they appear cordial and good sports. Obama even defended Clinton’s jacket at one debate after John Edwards commented on it negatively.

But off-camera the two have hardly spoken in months, in contrast to the chatter routinely exchanged among Clinton and other Democratic candidates and senators. Several observers described an encounter on the Senate floor last winter the day Obama announced his presidential exploratory committee. When he stuck out his hand to an approaching Clinton, she walked right past him with a cool stare.

Last weekend at the Yearly Kos convention in Chicago, Obama returned the favor with sharp criticism of Clinton for accepting campaign donations from lobbyists. And they’ve been sparring over Obama’s willingness to meet dictators without preconditions as a sign of his fresh approach and Clinton seeking to drive home the importance of experience, which poll participants attribute to her. Again tonight, they sparred in a union-sponsored forum in Chicago.

On the other hand, history is full of presidents and vice presidents who were not best buddies. It’s amazing how, come convention time, political geography and expediency can turn unlikely colleagues into the best of public teammates. In 1960 John Kennedy was more interested in winning Texas than any friendship with Lyndon Johnson. Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman were so distant that even during World War II the vice president did not know of the atomic bomb development until Roosevelt’s death.

In 1992, Bill Clinton went against expectations by picking another Southerner, Al Gore, as his running mate. So why shouldn’t his wife pick a fellow Chicagoan?

The more pressing question would be, can an alleged childhood Cubs fan like Clinton possibly work together with a South Sider like Obama, who is obligated by neighborhood to cheer for the White Sox? Maybe they could just settle on da Bears.

--Andrew Malcolm

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