Obama warns voters of Clintons' 'bamboozling'

COLUMBUS, Miss. -- Don't fall for hoodwinks, bamboozling or the old okey-doke, Barack Obama told supporters Monday, because he wants to make one thing clear: He has no interest in being Hillary Rodham Clinton's running mate.

(Yet later, when asked if he would absolutely rule it out, he stopped short).

Got it?

Obama, mixing humor and incredulity, ridiculed the idea of taking the second spot on a presidential ticket headed by Clinton. Voters in Mississippi, Pennsylvania and the other states yet to hold primaries, he said, "have to make a choice in this election."

Campaigning in Mississippi, whose primary is today, Obama noted he has won more states, more votes and more delegates than Clinton so far.

"I don't know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who is in first place," he said, drawing cheers and a long standing ovation from about 1,700 people.

Saying he wanted to be "absolutely clear," he added: "I don't want anybody here thinking that somehow, 'Well, you know, maybe I can get both.' Don't think that way."

"I am not running for vice president," Obama said emphatically. "I am running for president of the United States of America."

An hour later Obama was asked if he would "absolutely close out any possibility" of taking the ticket's second spot. He replied: "I am not running for vice president, and don't intend to be the vice president."

Earlier, at the Mississippi University for Women, Obama urged the crowd not to be taken in by the Clintons. In jargon he often uses with mostly black audiences, he said, "You all know the okey-doke. When somebody is trying to bamboozle you, when they are trying to hoodwink you."

"They are trying to hoodwink you," he said of the Clintons, by implying he might settle for the running mate's slot.

Indeed, Clinton and her husband, the former president, have suggested recently that a Clinton-Obama ticket would be popular and formidable against Republican Sen. John McCain in November.

"A lot of Democrats like us both and have been very hopeful that they wouldn't have to make a choice but obviously Democrats have to make a choice and I'm looking forward to getting the nomination," Clinton said Monday in Scranton, Pa. "And it's preliminary to talk about whoever might be on whose ticket."

Obama aides said such talk seemed designed to diminish him and to attract undecided voters in the remaining primary states by suggesting they can have a "dream ticket."

Obama had never suggested he might accept a second spot on the ticket. But until Monday he had not ridiculed the notion in such direct and extended terms.

He said it made no sense for Clinton to suggest he is not ready to be president and then hint that she might hand him the job that could make him president at a moment's notice.

"If I'm not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president?" he said, as the crowd laughed and cheered loudly.

Many political activists discounted the notion all along. They noted that the two senators lack a warm relationship and, more important, that Obama would be ill-served by hinting he might accept the vice presidential slot when he holds the lead in delegates and hopes to win the presidential nomination.

In the latest Associated Press count, Obama leads Clinton, 1,579-1,473. He has won 28 contests to her 17.

Moreover, many insiders feel the ambitious and fast-rising Obama would chafe in the vice president's job, especially in a White House where Bill Clinton would almost surely play a huge advisory role.

Still, the notion of a Clinton-Obama ticket has received ample discussion in recent days on cable TV news shows and newspapers such as New York City's tabloids.

In an interview Friday in Wyoming with KTVQ-TV, a CBS affiliate based in Billings, Mont., Obama's comments were somewhat mixed.

"Well, you know, I think it's premature," he said of accepting the second spot on the ticket. "You won't see me as a vice presidential candidate."

His Monday remarks, of course, will not completely end the speculation. Presidential candidates routinely disavow any interest in the vice presidential spot. But some, including John Edwards and Al Gore, change their minds when they fall short of their top goal.