Clinton-Obama Meet to Plan Campaign Strategy

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have a really 'great conversation'

Well, in the end that turned out to be really pretty easy to get ex-President Clinton to make specific plans to go out on the presidential trail and campaign for the rookie Illinois senator.

That's Sen. Barack Obama, the fellow who said such nasty things about Clinton's wife during the hard-fought primary season, (not that she didn't reciprocate), who stole her rightful White House inheritance with his hurried ambitions and better-organized campaign, whose people haven't really done all that much to help Hillary retire her large campaign debt and whose supporters tattooed the word "racist" indelibly into the infallible memory of the ex-ArkansasEx-president Bill Clinton and Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama meet for lunch Thursday in Harlem and have a really good conversation, aides said governor who still fondly regards himself as the country's first black president, despite his Jesse Jackson insinuations down in South Carolina.

All Obama had to do to get Clinton's cooperation was:

* Have the image of his joyous Denver stadium celebration snuffed within nine hours by the sudden emergence of a stunning female Republican vice presidential pick after Obama pointedly passed over the obvious female VP candidate in his party for a veteran male Washington insider as his co-agent of change.
* Not enjoy much if any poll bounce from the Denver festivities.
* Watch the Republicans turn Hurricane Gustav into a plus by burying George W. Bush's convention appearance and stressing national service.
* Witness an electric speech by this nonplussed nobody from....

...Alaska who not only energized her party but ignited a nonstop curiousity among millions that drove way better TV ratings for the GOP than the Democrats.

* Confront a 21-day, 20-point swing among white women away from himself toward the old guy with his tough-talking running mate in the businesslike skirt and top, rimless glasses with the large family.
* Start hearing worried grumbles and handwringing among party members around the country about toughness and "here we go again" turning a summertime Democratic lead into a November loss.
* As the new titular head of the Democratic party, walk on his knees up to Clinton's Harlem office building to have lunch. The ex-president knows how badly he's needed right now.

As The Ticket reported Thursday, meeting reporters beforehand, Clinton predicted Obama would win "pretty handily," which not only sets the bar higher for Obama but contradicts the senator's own prediction of a close contest.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/obama-clinton.html