Dream Ticket

New York Times reported Imagine President Barack Obama is preparing his first State of the Union message. Would he want Vice President Hillary Rodham Clinton tut-tutting with edits or suggesting how she could write it better? Would he want to hear Second Spouse Bill Clinton wax on and on about favorite lines from his own speeches? Alternatively, would the poll-obsessed Clintons want to wake up in the White House residence in 2009 and read about Vice President Obama’s sky-high popularity ratings, and how they make her look like his stern old lady?

The answer to both questions is no.

For months, the Clinton and Obama campaigns have been hearing suggestions of a so-called dream ticket

Or more of a nightmare.

of Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama. Former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York has pressed the idea most aggressively — it also came up in last week’s debate — while a major Clinton supporter in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, Gov. Edward G. Rendell, has blessed it, too. And some uncommitted superdelegates — the party leaders and elected officials whose votes may determine the nominee — see such a unity ticket as a way to short-circuit a fight for the nomination all the way to the Democratic convention in August, and to blend the voter bases of the two candidates.

That is because they picked two bad candidates, and one appeals to half of the party, and the other to the other half.

“It would be great to see them on the same ticket — they had attracted so many new voters and so much excitement, it seems so obvious,” said Sam Spencer, an uncommitted superdelegate from Maine. “Hillary would be the L.B.J. of 1960 — both served longer and had more experience, and L.B.J. was willing to take the vice presidency. And Obama would only come into his own more as vice president.”

All that stands in the way are a few pesky details — like the fact that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton want to be done with each other, starting now. And that Mr. Clinton bitterly believes that the Obama camp has portrayed him as a brutish, race-baiting campaigner, according to two associates of Mr. Clinton. On top of that, Obama aides assert, Mrs. Clinton’s baggage would damage Mr. Obama’s image in a New York minute. And they also believe that the Clinton camp’s negative tone seems a poor match for Mr. Hope.

The Con Man and the Power Hungry Bitch do not make a happy couple.