SAYING NO TO UNITY.

It's been such a long, and divisive, primary. And since no deus ex machina has yet descended from the sky to settle the Democratic race for once and for all, why not choose both? After all, as Ed Kilgore argues over at the Plank, "nothing quite scratches the itch like a unity ticket."

Except if you have to start your argument with three "maybe's" -- as Kilgore does -- it's probably a fair sign you don't have a very strong case. And based on the last Clinton White House's record alone, one whiff of the possible "what-ifs" Kilgore raises (too much inter-staff and personal tension, too many power struggles, too much baggage) should be enough to stop Obama in his tracks.

A dual ticket not only detracts from Obama's positives, it adds on Clinton's negatives to boot. Early opposition to the war, turning over a new leaf in foreign policy? Not when your vice-president voted for the former, and has since casually threatened "obliterate" a major Middle Eastern country with aplomb. Hitch on a squarely Washington insider, and suddenly the Obama campaign's key tagline--"change"--starts to sound weirdly akimbo. (Somehow, Changexperience just doesn't have that ring.) Meanwhile, take the people who in February said they won't ever vote for Obama (34 percent), add on the number who won't ever vote for Clinton (47 percent), and even assuming a healthy degree of overlap, you've got a pretty good scorecard right there for John McCain.

Regardless of the good face the candidates might put on a unity ticket, particularly given the clash in their governing styles, it would still be something of a clumsy two-step. Onstage, the contrast in their demeanors and abrasive lack of chemistry has always been painful. (To be frank, the moments I've found both candidates most off-putting are during the debates, when they're sitting side-by-side.) Pundits will inevitably keep mixing up the ticket name and have to awkwardly correct themselves: "Clinton-Obama--I mean Obama-Clinton."

Would bestowing the VP slot make Obama look gracious? It's possible, but it also might just make him seem a bit feckless. Had the nomination been settled several months ago and Obama decided to offer her a position as VP then, that could've been a different matter. But at this point, it would come off less like the Lincoln-like gesture of statesmanship that Andrew Sullivan has suggested, and more like what it really would be: an attempt to settle the drama for once and for all.

As for possible Clinton defectors? Passionate declarations of such perverse loyalty to the contrary, I'm hard-pressed to believe that Democrats would, in the end, choose a third term of Bush over the eventual party nominee.

To date, Obama's run a campaign that's been singular in its clarity of themes: a new politics, grassroots-powered, change. In 1992, the last time a Clinton ran for the White House, Bill bucked conventional wisdom to reject a candidate who would 'balance' him, and instead picked a fresher candidate that helped define the generational metaphor of his campaign. This time around, Obama would be wise to do the same.

--Te-Ping Chen