SPOTLIGHT: Clinton/ Obama anyone? How about Obama/Clinton?

<p align="justify">What's more electable than a presidential ticket that features a popular Democrat whose mere status as the party's nominee is a historic American milestone and ceiling-crasher?

<p align="justify">How about TWO popular and historic Democrats on the same ticket?

<p align="justify">Barack Obama/ Hillary Clinton, anyone?

<p align="justify">Clinton/Obama, maybe?

<p align="justify">"It's hard to imagine it playing out like that," said Craig Curtis, a professor of political science at Bradley University. "What, Hillary Clinton is going to continue to make the argument that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president of the United States during the primary campaign and then pick him as a running mate and say he's OK to be a heartbeat away? I don't see it."

<p align="justify">Maybe it's a diversionary parlor game, but after winning three of four state primaries on Tuesday and recharging her stalled presidential hopes, Sen. Clinton gave voice, and thus credibility, to the possibility of a Democratic "dream" ticket. Asked whether she and Obama should be on the same ticket, Clinton did not deflect the question into a galaxy a few removed from our Milky Way. Instead, she responded:

<p align="justify">"That may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of the ticket. I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me."

<p align="justify">Prime the pundit pump. There's news in there somewhere.

<p align="justify">"Hillary Clinton doesn't speak off the cuff," said state Sen. David Koehler, D-Peoria, an Obama delegate to the national convention. "For her to say that must mean that there are private conversations on the topic and that it's within the realm of possibility. Given the contentiousness of the campaign recently it seems unlikely though."

<p align="justify">Regardless, Koehler said he thought it would be a successful pairing.

<p align="justify">"I'm sure it would be a winner," he said.

<p align="justify">Tari Renner, chairman of the political science department at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington thought it more likely that Clinton might want Obama as a vice presidential candidate if she won the nomination, but not the other way around.

<p align="justify">"Hillary Clinton is more radioactive and divisive than Obama," Renner said. "Obama at the top of the ticket basically gets all the Hillary voters, but Hillary doesn't automatically get all the Barack voters. She would need him, I think, more than he would need her, and she might be more obligated to extend the vice presidential offer to him if she wins the nomination then he would be obligated to ask her to be on the ticket with him."

<p align="justify">Most of a generation has passed since a political party's presidential nomination process has been as murky and unknowable as the current race between Clinton and Obama.

<p align="justify">Republicans Ronald Reagan and President Gerald Ford slugged it out in 1976 before the incumbent president won the nomination only to lose in the general election to Jimmy Carter. A weakened President Carter battled U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy all the way to the Democratic convention in 1980, won the nomination and then lost to Reagan in November.

<p align="justify">Since then national political conventions have become tightly scripted and choreographed affairs where the biggest uncertainty is how little airtime the national television networks give to them.

<p align="justify">Frank Mackaman, archivist at the Dirksen Center in Pekin, thinks a shared Obama and Clinton ticket is unlikely based on history.

<p align="justify">"The last time two United States senators shared a successful presidential ticket was (John) Kennedy and (Lyndon) Johnson in 1960, and that was a close election." Mackaman said.

<p align="justify">And that Kennedy/Johnson ticket wasn't fashioned out of two popular candidates like Obama and Clinton, but to give Kennedy help in Texas and the south, Mackaman said.

<p align="justify">"That same logic isn't used in creating an Obama/Clinton ticket," he said. "And it overlooks personal chemistry. After a hard-fought nominating process which of the two strong personalities is going to be willing to submerge their own ego to take the second position? My guess would be neither one."

<p align="justify">Asked why Clinton would open the door a crack to the possibility of a shared ticket with Obama, Mackaman had a one-word answer.

<p align="justify">"Fatigue?" he said. "Anything else doesn't make much sense to me."

<p align="justify">Scott Hilyard can be reached at (309) 686-3244 or shilyard@pjstar.com.