After Tuesdays election results, Senator Obama will most likely be the Democratic nominee. This was confirmed by Tim Russert, which you can read about here. A new Time Magazine cover out today, features a smiling Obama with the headline that reads, “And the Winner* is”. (note the asterisk *Really, were pretty sure this time.) So, this has renewed the debate about the “dream ticket.” But, not only are people referring it to as the dream ticket, but also as the “unity ticket.”

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN Thursday, Obama addressed the idea of the Obama-Clinton ticket. And it sounds like he is open to it.

Senator Obama: ”Sen. Clinton has shown herself to be an extraordinary candidate. She’s tireless, she’s smart, she’s capable, and so obviously she’d be on anybody’s short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate,” he said. “But it would be presumptuous of me at this point … to somehow suggest that she should be my running mate.”

Clinton has not spoken of this ticket lately. She mentioned it after her win in Ohio, but I am guessing she won’t say much about it until her fight for the Democratic nomination is officially over. Which in my opinion will be in June, but you never know, it could be at the Democratic National Convention in August. 

Although I don’t think Obama needs Clinton, it might not be a bad idea. However, I do think loyal Clinton supporters would vote for Obama in November, if Clinton outspokenly supports Obama at the end of the primary. The stakes are high, and the party has time to settle down before the November election. However, the “unity ticket” debate continues.   

Blogger, Andrew Sullivan, mentions that Obama could do what Abraham Lincoln did many years ago. Sullivan wrote: “What Lincoln did, as Doris Kearns Goodwin explained in her brilliant book, “Team Of Rivals,” was to bring his most bitter opponents into his cabinet in order to maintain national and party unity at a time of crisis. 

According to Clinton, she’s not going to quit. Sullivan went a little further.

Sullivan: Done deftly, picking Clinton could even resonate with Obama’s supporters as a statesmanlike gesture, a sign of the kind of reconciliation he wants to achieve at home and abroad and energize his own party for the fall. It is consonant with his core message: that he can unify the country in a way few other politicians can. It would even help heal the gulf that has opened up between the Clintons and black voters in this campaign. It’s win-win all round.

There are some who are for the “unity ticket.”

From the New Republic: Ed Kilgore: The answer is simple, and for me at least, overwhelmingly compelling. Right now the Democratic Party is deeply divided, as evidenced by the steadily rising number of Democratic primary voters threatening to take a dive in November. Those divisions are, in fact, John McCain’s most important political asset. Yet they are not about ideology, or about policy issues, really; they are about these two Democratic politicians, and all the symbolic freight each has assumed.  The easiest way, the fastest way, and the only sure way, to heal these divisions is to unite their sources on a single ticket. 

And others who don’t think it is such a great, or necessary ticket. 

The New Republic: Mark Schmitt: The Obama-Clinton divide will heal naturally; it does not require radical surgery. Clinton should be considered as one might consider any other candidate for the vice presidency: in terms of what she brings to the ticket and to the eventual presidency.

I think Obama should be able to choose whoever he thinks is best for Vice President. But, it seems like this option is one that may be on the table after the primary is over. Although it seems hard to imagine it would turn out like that, I don’t think it would be necessarily bad, if there was a “unity ticket.” Thoughts?