Clinton and Obama supporters have bruised each other up pretty badly over the past few months, but the surest path to a Democratic victory in November may well be a unity ticket:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has told congressional colleagues she would be open to becoming Barack Obama’s vice-presidential nominee, saying she would consider it if it would help Democrats win the White House.

Clinton, a New York senator, made the comment during a conference call with other New York legislators today.

The word comes from one of the participants on the call.

Clinton’s remarks were in response to a question from Democratic Representative Nydia Velazquez.

She said she believed the best way for Obama to win over key voting blocs, including Hispanics, would be for him to choose Clinton as his running mate.

Clinton replied that she is “open to it” if it would help the party’s prospects in November.

Successful unity tickets have come out of bitter rivalries before. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush joined forces after a hard fought primary campaign in 1980, for example. But the race that may be the most instructive today is the 1960 race when Sen. John F. Kennedy, a young wealthy Yankee insurgent, usurped the Democratic nomination from the powerful Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, and then had the audacity to offer Johnson the vice presidency to Johnson.

Kennedy needed Johnson because there was considerable skepticism in the South about Kennedy, not just because he was a Harvard elite and was considered to be inexperienced, but because he was Catholic. Johnson’s supporters were surprised when he chose to give up his powerful post as leader in the Senate to be vice president, but his biographers say Johnson, who had enjoyed playing the foil to Republican Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, worried that being majority leader under a president of his own party would not be as challenging or fun.

In 1960, Kennedy had a problem with Southerners because of his religion Today, Obama has a problem with Scots-Irish voters, particularly in the northern Appalachian states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky, where Hillary Clinton trounced him. West Virginia and Kentucky are probably out of reach for any Democrat this cycle, but if 2008 voting patterns are similar to 2004, with Florida voting Republican again, Obama will be in trouble if he can’t carry both Pennsylvania and Ohio, which have 21 and 20 Electoral College votes, respectively. Clinton remains popular in both these states and could possibly deliver them.

Even if Obama flips some of the red states where he did surprisingly well in the primaries, the states in question are so small that it would be very hard to make up the loss of 41 Electoral College votes from Pennsylvania and Ohio. Some of the potentially flippable states are Iowa (3 Electoral College votes), New Mexico (5), Nevada (5) and Colorado (5). Less likely flips are Missouri (11) and Virginia (13).

If Obama does not select Clinton, let’s hope he picks someone with genuine Scots-Irish cred. A strong alternative be would Sen. Jim Webb, a veteran and a former Republican, who is also the author of Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. And Webb’s Senate seat is safe. Virginia has a Democratic governor.

One challenge with putting Webb on the ticket is that he is not that well-known outside of Washington, and valuable campaign resources would be required to introduce him to voters. Hillary Clinton would need no introduction.

And then there is the Schadenfreude of Cheney handing over his office in the West Wing to Hillary Clinton — the same office that she occupied when she was First Lady.