Will She or Won't She?

By now, Hillary Clinton has more or less lost the battle against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for the US presidency.

But she still has not officially conceded defeat, though she had congratulated Obama for his successful campaign.

All eyes will be on this weekend when she is to announce her next course of action. Aides and anaylysts do not expect her to officially pull out from the presidential race but merely "suspend her campaign". This is so that, I suppose, to entitle her to keep her pledged delegates and be still in the running should anything happens to Obama. (There had been news reports of possible attempts on the life of Obama should he gets nominated or elected. If the President dies, the Vice President will take over until the next election.)

However, in an e-mail to her supporters today, Hillary said she would give "strong support" to Obama; hinting that she might accept being Obama's running-mate as Vice President instead.

But being offered as running mate will not be automatic for Hillary (I use Hillary instead of Clinton to differentiate from her husband, former US president Bill), although her name would probably be high on the list. Obama has formed a 3-member team to scout for potential running mates. Among the 3 is Caroline, daughter of former US President the late John F Kennedy.

Assuming she is picked as Obama's running mate, will she accept it? That is the 6-million dollar question which will be at be at least partially answered come this weekend.

But I think she will. As I said yesterday, an Obama-Hillary team will stand a good chance against McCain and partner. Today, Hillary's campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said an Obama-Clinton ticket would be "unstoppable."

"I think we would have the White House for 16 years," he told MSNBC. (A US president can only hold office for two 4-year terms, so Terry was hinting that Hillary would succeed Obama after 8 years.)

Well, to both Obama and Hillary, we in Borneo in general and Sabah in particular wish you well and good luck.