In view of President Bush’s State of the Union address, I’ve got a great idea as to how the president can guarantee himself reelection — dump Dick Cheney as his vice-presidential running mate and select Bill Clinton instead.
Think about it: Bush and Clinton share the exact same philosophical vision for the role of government in society. For example, not only do both of them favor such things as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Department of Education, Department of Commerce, and National Endowment for the Arts, they both actually favor expanding the funding for these bureaucratic departments and the socialist and interventionist programs they sponsor.
Let’s also not forget their joint commitment to continue fiercely waging the wars on drugs, poverty, wealth, guns, immigrants, and illiteracy.
Of course, while Bush would like to use federal power to support marriage, Clinton might want to use it to support divorce, but that’s a matter that undoubtedly could be ironed out between the two of them, especially given their joint commitment to making Big Brother a member of every American family.
Moreover, there’s no disagreement between Bush and Clinton on the level of government spending — they are both big-spending presidents. While Bush has become the bigger of the two spenders, I seriously doubt that Clinton would raise any serious objections, at least not before the election, when securing votes from a grateful electorate is so important.
Their foreign-policy visions are the same — they both believe in the U.S. government’s role as the world’s international policeman and preemptive invader of independent and sovereign nations. In fact, when Bush effectively admitted former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s charge that he began planning the invasion and war of aggression against Iraq soon after his election, he defended his actions by saying that he was simply embracing Clinton’s policy of “regime change” for Iraq.
A Bush-Clinton ticket would also diffuse criticism over the WMD deceptions that Bush employed to terrify the American people into supporting his war against Iraq. Bush could easily respond that Clinton lied too with respect to sex, implying that everyone lies sometimes.
The war on terrorism? No difference. After all, don’t forget that it wasn’t President Bush who was the first to declare war on terrorism — it was President Clinton.
Given that Clinton served as president for two terms, would the Constitution permit him to serve as vice president? Who cares? After all, we’re at war, so why let a technicality like that get in our way?
A Bush-Clinton ticket would bring together two people who have everything in common with respect to how they view the role of the government in our lives. I think it would be unbeatable.