Should I trust Lanny Davis?

Lanny Davis’ article in the 31 July Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121745984626098717.html does more to convince me that Hillary Clinton should NOT be Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate. The key issue for me is the ability to control Bill Clinton personally and to a lesser extent, the Clinton’s desire for power.

It was quite evident during the primary that Hillary could not control Bill. If she could not do it then, why should we trust Lanny Davis when he basically says that things would be different if we only knew them as Davis knows them?

I further believe that with Hillary in the vice president’s office, we would have a continued state of campaigning for the presidency, with her as the candidate. We have had had eight years of that with George W. Bush; we don’t need another four or eight years.

But the most important fact that leads me to believe that Hillary is not the right choice for vice president is the fact that she cannot keep her supporters in line. In other words, she cannot exert what used to be called “party discipline” on all these various supporters who have been very vocal (like Mr. Davis) of their unhappiness with the way the primary season ended. If Hillary cannot control these people, how in the world will she control Bill and his entourage? If all this vocal unhappiness is being done with her approval (albeit with enough plausible deniability), doesn’t that speak volumes to the idea that Hillary is no real change agent but somebody willing to continue with politics as usual?