Disinformation Or Cold Calculation?

The Times of London of all places has an article claiming that sources close to Hillary Clinton are whispering that she might opt out of a run for the White House and become the leader of the Democrats in the Senate. There have been rumors and stories to that effect for several weeks, of course.

FRIENDS of Hillary Clinton have been whispering the unthinkable. Despite her status as the runaway frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president, some of her closest advisers say she might opt out of the White House race and seek to lead her party in the Senate.

The former first lady longs to return to the White House with husband Bill as consort. Only last week she told television viewers America would be led by a woman one day. “Stay tuned,” she said.

First, however, she has to win the election. Some Democratic party elders — the American equivalent of the Tories’ “men in grey suits” — say Clinton may back out of the race of her own volition.

“I would not be surprised if she were to decide that the best contribution she can make to her country is to forget about being president and become a consensus-maker in the Senate,” said a leading Democratic party insider. “She believes there is no trust between the two political sides and that we can’t function as a democracy without it.”

As senator for New York, Clinton has forged alliances across party lines with leading Republicans such as Senator John McCain and Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives. In the eyes of the electorate, however, she is a potentially divisive figure.

A recent poll for Time magazine showed that 53% of the electorate said they had a favourable impression of Clinton and only 44% viewed her negatively, figures that President George W Bush can only dream of at the moment. Even so, 53% of independent voters said they would not vote for her.

“The prospect of a Hillary for President campaign has put much of the Democratic establishment in a bind,” Time concluded. “The early line is that Hillary would be unstoppable in a Democratic primary but unelectable in a general election.”

The solution, insiders say, is for Clinton to take over as Senate minority leader in 2009 from the lacklustre Harry Reid, senator for Nevada. One well-respected blog, The Washington Note, recently claimed that Reid privately told Clinton the job was hers if she gave up her presidential ambitions.

Reid’s office denied it, but the claim made its way into the Los Angeles Times where it was suggested she would make a “superlative Senate leader” while keeping her options open for the 2012 presidential race.

If I were as calculating as the Clintons have proven themselves to be over the years, I'd be keeping an option like this on the table for one very good reason. If the party veers hard to the left as the netroots want it to, Hillary would be in a tough, bruising fight for the nomination and would have a massively uphill (and ultimately unwinnable) battle in a general election. I suspect that is why the more moderate Democrats are thinking along these lines. It is also possible that this is simply misinformation being spread around to keep attention on her without having to actually take any positions.

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1. Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » An Important Nugget — Sunday, 3 September , 2006 @ 7:53 am