The Dream Ticket Is Still Real

I was one of the first community organizers who Barack Obama met in Chicago over 20 years ago, and I have worked directly with him throughout his political career. I think he has missed an opportunity to explain how his community organizing in Chicago was historic.

In 1986, Barack was Project Director for Project Vote, a city-wide voter registration campaign that put more than 100,000 new voters on the books, which set the stage for the historic election of Illinois U.S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, the re-election of Chicago's 1st Black Mayor Harold Washington in 1987, and a new Chicago City Council.

That brings us to the 2008 election. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton compliment each other and often used the word "we" in their discussions of the party, leading some to wonder if there could be an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket. That question got a lot of reaction from the audience recently, and is worthy of consideration.

The combination of Obama and Clinton best represents a ticket that is not the black ticket or the white ticket, but the right ticket. As a former staff member on Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr's 1988 presidential staff, I watched how many of our supporters did not support the Democratic nominee Mike Dukakis after Rev. Jackson lost the Democratic nomination. Rev. Jackson finished second in total support, garnering 7 million votes, but he was not on the ticket.

We can't let that happen again. The Democratic Party cannot afford for the excitement and new generation of voters that Obama and Clinton have brought to the process to be turned off by the non inclusion of the other candidate on the ticket.

Will Obama supporters have the same passion to elect Clinton if she becomes the nominee without Obama as vice president? Would Clinton supporters have the same enthusiasm for Obama if he is the nominee without her as vice president?

A lot of new voters may not understand why the two top vote getters are not automatically on the ticket together. Based upon my experience of 1988, let me be one of the first to say that I would surely support the Obama/Clinton ticket, or the Clinton-Obama ticket.

I agree with what Barack Obama stated so clearly today, and that he certainly is not a candidate for vice president. If he stays on course he will go into the Convention with a majority of the popular vote and a majority of the delegates and will be the Democratic nominee. But the burden will be on him to make real his public statements of how he respects the leadership of Senator Clinton, and that he respects the American people who have made their votes clear in making Obama and Clinton their top two vote getters.