With opponents like these ...

Back in April, after she’d been shaking hands at a Toledo factory gate but before flying to Texas, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told the press: “Sen. McCain brings a lifetime of experience to the campaign. I bring a lifetime of experience. And Sen. Obama brings a speech he gave in 2002.”

A pretty good zinger that got Clinton into the day’s news flow while her plane was heading to a rally in Austin.

But why would the Democratic candidate mention the Republican at all, let alone in a positive way?

Then, in the primaries’ final weeks, as the inevitable delegate math squeezed Clinton, she attacked Barack Obama. And John McCain, already running for the general election, attacked Obama. And Obama fired back at the Republican.

But neither Clinton nor McCain fired at each other.

Then, after the last night of primary ballot-counting, Clinton and Obama spoke briefly about each other.

McCain uttered one sentence about Obama. Then the Arizona Republican said this: “Sen. Clinton has earned great respect for her tenacity and courage. The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans, and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes received.

“As the father of three daughters, I owe her a debt for inspiring millions of women to believe there is no opportunity in this great country beyond their reach. I am proud to call her my friend.”

When Clinton conceded the Democratic race last weekend, she thanked her supporters and offered a hearty endorsement of Obama.

But something was missing. There was not one word in her speech about the Republican nominee whom Obama must confront.

As she was speaking, the McCain campaign’s new blog, the McCain Report, posted a special tribute to the losing Democratic candidate.

“Sen. Clinton has really grown on us,” McCain blogger Michael Goldfarb wrote. “She ran an impressive campaign.” She was “an impressive candidate.” She “inspired a generation of women.”

The blog post included a photo of McCain and Clinton together on a ship in the Arctic during a journey as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. These things do not happen on official campaign websites spontaneously or by accident. Nor does the enemy accidentally get omitted from a major speech.

So The Ticket called people who know both McCain and Clinton. It’s true, they confirmed, there is a special friendship. It apparently started in January 2001, when Clinton became the first former first lady elected to public office and walked into the U.S. Senate.

It has always been a gentlemen’s club, if not always populated by gentlemen. McCain made a point of heartily welcoming the newcomer and showing her around. “They really hit it off,” said one friend.

Both also have at times been at odds with their own parties. They found they could work together across the aisle as committee members and enjoyed each other’s company on fact-finding trips around the world. In Estonia, according to one famous tale, Clinton challenged McCain to a vodka shot-drinking contest, which he readily accepted.

Later, McCain remarked to friends “she was one of the guys,” a high compliment among guys.

Learning about their friendship got us to thinking: What if McCain and Clinton had faced each other in the general election?

How to become vice president

Everybody’s talking about how McCain and Obama are going to pick their running mates. And along comes Vice President Dick Cheney on a Connecticut radio station to shed a little more light on how he came to be vice president for George W. Bush.

It happened in the spring of 2000 when Bush’s campaign, obviously desperate to ensure capture of Wyoming’s three crucial electoral votes, contacted Cheney.

“The way it actually worked was,” Cheney recalls, “they talked to me about whether or not I was interested in the [vice president’s] job originally, and I said, ‘No, definitely not interested.’

“And then they came back and said, ‘Would you help us find somebody?’ and I said, ‘Sure, I’d be happy to do that.’ We got through doing the search.

“It took a couple of months, and at the end of the day, the president, after we reviewed all the candidates, looked at me and said, ‘You know, you’re the solution to my problem.’ . . .

“He persuaded me that what he wanted and what he needed in a vice president, that I fit the bill. So I was willing to give up private life, which I was enjoying at that point, and join in.

“I don’t regret it for a minute. It’s been a tremendous experience. He’s been absolutely true to his word in terms of letting me get actively involved in the whole range of activities. And it’s been well worth the effort.”

One soapbox leads to another

Mike Huckabee has inked a one-year deal to provide political commentary on Fox News. That network is the logical venue for the former Arkansas governor, who rode his strongly conservative convictions on social issues -- and his ability to glibly communicate those views -- to a first-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

Some saw this coming a long time ago. In November, veteran Arkansas political journalist John Brummett ended a column on the politician this way: “From time to time I’ve written an unoriginal but incisive line, which is that Huckabee is really running for his own show on Fox or MSNBC. I’m sticking with that.

“But I’ll admit there are moments lately when I wonder if he’ll have to go through the motions of being the Republican presidential or vice presidential nominee first.”

Brummett’s piece was prescient, but he may have gotten the sequence wrong -- as well as underestimated Huckabee’s ultimate ambition.

Take note of the former candidate’s schedule of late. Monday found him in Bedford, N.H., speaking to the state’s Federation of Republican Women’s Lilac Luncheon. Such a lovely sounding affair would be high on anyone’s list to attend, but especially so for someone looking down the presidential trail.

Huckabee is back in Iowa this weekend, speaking at the state GOP’s annual convention. Ostensibly, he’s appearing as a McCain surrogate. But one imagines he’ll be reminding Republicans there what they liked about him earlier this year -- and could like about him again.

PBS to broadcast gavel-to-gavel

Great news for political junkies! PBS will broadcast gavel-to-gavel television coverage of both parties’ national conventions this summer.

The commercial broadcast networks stopped their blanket coverage years ago. The inner, internecine workings of democracy are not boffo broadcast. Scenes of people in funny hats and long-winded politicians just can’t compete against episodes of “Lost” and correspondent and technician overtime at such affairs can cut into profits.

But PBS says it will carry live coverage of it all.

The Democratic convention is Aug. 25 to 28 in Denver, and the Republican convention is Sept. 1 to 4 in St. Paul, Minn.

Jim Lehrer, anchor and executive editor of “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,” will anchor the PBS prime-time coverage from skyboxes overlooking the podiums in both convention halls.

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Excerpted from The Times’ political blog, Top of the Ticket, at www.latimes.com/

topoftheticket.