Pelosi: No dice on dream ticket

Count the top Democrat in Congress among the skeptics that the so-called "dream ticket" of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will materialize.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Clinton has basically ruled out the possibility by suggesting that Republican John McCain is more ready to be commander-in-chief than Obama.

"I think that ticket either way is impossible," Pelosi told New England Cable News.

Obama, himself, threw cold water Monday on speculation stoked by Clinton and her supporters about a joint ticket. He told supporters in Mississippi that it makes no sense for Clinton to offer the No. 2 slot when he is ahead in delegates, and he declared emphatically that he is not running for vice president.

UPDATE: But in exit polls today, voters in Mississippi appeared far more open to a ticket that includes both Democrats.

Six in 10 Obama voters said he should pick Clinton for vice president if he wins the nomination; four in 10 Clinton voters said she should pick Obama as her running mate if she wins, according to preliminary results of the exit polls conducted for the TV networks and the Associated Press.

Pelosi, a California congresswoman who remains an uncommitted superdelegate, has also chided both Clinton and Obama for the level of negative campaigning in the nomination race.