Elmer Smith: Obama and Clinton no dream team, but there is one

NOW THAT the race for the Democratic nomination is all but over, we're starting to hear a renewed drumbeat for the so-called Obama/Clinton "dream team."

That's the sort of dream you get when you go to bed with a stomach full of tainted pork.

There is nothing either of them can gain from that forced marriage. Barack Obama would be saddled with a running mate that he has described as a vestige of the politics of the past. Hillary Clinton would be stuck in a job with no official duties except to break the occasional tie in Congress.

She could remain a force to be reckoned with in a Senate with a strong Democratic majority. Even in losing the nomination, the nearly 15 million votes she has attracted give her a powerful mandate in Congress.

That's why I hope she wins the West Virginia primary by a large enough margin to allow her to bow out gracefully this week. He has overtaken her among pledged superdelegates. By next week, the remaining fence-sitters will be stampeding to his camp.

Unlike a lot of anxious Obama supporters, I see no particular urgency in ending her run. Obama is already starting to run against Sen. John McCain. She's an afterthought.

I'd just like to see her take a few weeks off to salve her wounds before she sets out on the campaign trail for Obama.

I think the Hillary haters will be surprised at how hard Hillary and Bill (they'll probably give Chelsea a pass) will campaign for Obama. They have no choice.

They can't sit this one out. If Obama won without them, they would forfeit what's left of their influence in the party. If Obama lost, they would be blamed.

Besides, the Clintons could be an important asset in the fall campaign. Other than Obama, no Democrat has ever drawn as many votes in a contested primary as Hillary Clinton. Bill, despite the harm he's done to his legacy this year, is still immensely popular.

Obama is much too smart to turn a cold shoulder to their support, and they're too smart not to offer it.

But Obama already has the Clintons.

What he needs is someone to help him attract white working-class males. What Hillary Clinton has tried to characterize as an Obama problem is really a Democratic Party problem. None of the party's nominees has fared very well with white working-class males in the last four presidential races.

Some say Obama should choose a female running mate to keep disaffected Hillary voters from abandoning the ticket. But the women aren't going anywhere.

Women have not been voting against Obama. They have been voting for Clinton. In a race against McCain, the anti-war candidate will win the female vote.

My choice would be Sen. Jim Webb, the Virginia Democrat. Webb could help Obama cut his losses in the South, where Bill Clinton and Al Gore lost, despite Clinton being a former governor and Gore a former senator of Southern states.

They still would lose the South. But they can win Virginia and narrow the margin in the Deep South.

And Webb would help to insulate Obama from the armchair patriots who believe that being anti-war is the same as being anti-troops.

A highly decorated Marine Vietnam veteran and former Navy secretary, Webb is one of the very few congressmen with a son who has served in combat. He introduced a bill yesterday that would provide enhanced educational benefits for combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

It would guarantee a full-ride scholarship and a monthly housing stipend for veterans to attend any public university in their home state.

Democrats and nervous Republicans running for re-election may have enough votes for a veto-proof majority when the measure comes up later this month.

But a Bush veto would improve the Democratic Party's chances in the fall.

Webb, 62, is everything that Obama is not. That makes him a perfect complement for an Obama candidacy.

That's what I would call a dream team. *

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith