With a photo-ready smile and a confident manner, Hillary Clinton took the same seat she occupied 12 years ago when she accompanied her husband to meet with the Washington press. He was running for president, and she was there to convince reporters that their marriage was intact despite the stories of Bill Clinton’s womanizing.
Now reporters want to know if she is running for president. There were a half dozen attempts to get Clinton to say something other than her stock answer that she has no plans to run in 2004. One questioner noted it has been 20 years since Geraldine Ferraro made history as the first woman on a major party ticket. Why weren’t more women running for president? “If I talk about women running for president, I don’t want you to read anything into that,” Clinton said. “Is that a deal?” “No way,” shouted a reporter.
Another journalist tried flattery: “Nobody has the standing in the Democratic Party that you have, except your husband.” He barely finished the sentence and Clinton was grinning, “Nice try.”
However many times Hillary Clinton denies she is running in 2004, the buzz continues about her possible candidacy. We always love the candidate who is outside the process. The entry last week of Gen. Wesley Clark into the race only fed the rumors that the Clintons are orchestrating the primaries behind the scenes with an eye to reserving a place for Hillary and extending Bill’s legacy.
The confluence of circumstances is almost too delicious. Clark is the vice president Clinton never had. He’s from Arkansas, a Rhodes scholar and he performed heroic service in Vietnam and won a war in Kosovo. With Clark in the White House, the Clinton era returns. If Clark doesn’t live up to his potential on the campaign trail, then Hillary jumps in to save the party.
It’s a tantalizing scenario, and former president Clinton drops enough hints to keep it alive. Promoting his wife as presidential material is the equivalent of sending her roses on their anniversary. It’s his way of making it up to her that he misbehaved in such a colossally embarrassing way in the White House.
I don’t believe she’ll run in 2004, and I’m sticking to my story. But she is leaving a crack open in the event President Bush’s presidency collapses on a grander scale than we’ve seen so far, that Howard Dean implodes on his straight talk and that Clark with his quirky certitude turns out to be more Ross Perot than Dwight Eisenhower. Even then, Hillary would run into a buzz saw in New York because of her repeated pledge to serve out her full six years. Prematurely bolting for the presidency would play into the caricature of Hillary as a careerist and opportunist, more focused on her own ambition than what’s good for her constituents.
The filing date for the New Hampshire primary is Nov. 21, so the Hillary window won’t be open much longer. The big question is whether Clark will stop Dean. There is a sense of desperation on Capitol Hill among Democrats. Most of them don’t know Dean, and they believe the conventional wisdom that he is too liberal, too antiwar and too prone to pop off on sensitive subjects to entrust with the nomination. The fallout from Dean’s comments on the Middle East where he called for the administration to be more “even-handed” and referred to Hamas terrorists as “soldiers,” continues to haunt Democrats, even those who believe Dean’s heart and head are in the right place on the issue.
As Bush seems more and more vulnerable, Democrats don’t want to squander the chance to beat him. The notion of Clark is appealing, but if Clark allows himself to become the vehicle for a Stop Dean movement, he could lose his luster as an outsider and precipitate civil war within the party between the pragmatists and the Dean true believers.
What a contrast to a year ago when Bush on the eve of war addressed the United Nations. Then he was a colossus astride the world stage as he issued an ultimatum to act against Iraq, humiliating the world body for its feckless behavior in the face of the growing threat. Now it’s the U.N.’s turn to humiliate him as the rationale for the war slips away and weapons of mass destruction are not found. Bush doesn’t exude the confidence he once did, and the downward spiral in Iraq and the economy revives questions about his capability as president.
Clinton hammered out the case against Bush as she dipped a tea bag in hot water. She called his $87 billion request for Iraq “a bill for failed leadership.” Can she still collect in ‘08 if the bill comes due in ‘04?
