Hillary Rodham Clinton’s probable campaign for the presidency is putting the man in whose administration she once worked into a complicated bind.
President Barack Obama clearly wants a Democrat to succeed him on Jan. 20, 2017 when the new president takes the oath of office. It’s been reported repeatedly that Obama and Clinton have developed a complicated relationship.
It once was testy, such as when they campaign against each other for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Sen. Obama then said to Sen. Clinton, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” Obama then won the presidency and appointed her as secretary of state.
It was then that she swallowed the Obama Kool-Aid, so to speak, and endorsed his foreign policy initiatives.
Now she’s back in “private life,” if you want to call it that. She’s written a book and is embarking on a nationwide book-promotion tour for “Hard Choices.” One of those choices might be to put some daylight between her world view and the view shared by her former political benefactor, the president.
And … oh, yes, the president’s complications get even more so. He has this vice president, Joe Biden, who also is thought to want to run for president. Vice President Biden has been indispensable at times, helping broker budget deals with his Senate pals and offering advice on a wide range of foreign policy issues and/or crises.
Their relationship also has been up and down as well. Still, Biden is the No. 2 man in the Obama administration.
Does the president choose between two of his most high-profile associates? How does he pick one while throwing the other one over? If it’s Clinton over Biden, how does the vice president continue to serve loyally and speak out publicly for the president? If it’s Biden over Clinton, how does the president deal with Hillary’s husband, the formidable 42nd president of the United States and one of the more effective surrogates Obama has employed on occasion?
It’s getting crowded at the top of the Democratic Party political pecking order.