Has Hillary Hit the Glass Ceiling?

According to an article by Sarah Baxter in Sunday's Times of London (a paper, we should note, owned by Rupert Murdoch), "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."

Now is this just wishful thinking on the part of Rupert Murdoch and the Times of London? Or is there something to this?

My first impression is that the unnamed "friends" mentioned in the article have to be smoking crack. There's only one reason why Hillary Clinton wouldn't run for president, and that's because, having looked at the field and sized up the competition, she thought that if she ran she wouldn't win. In that scenario she's better off staying in the Senate. But the fact is that she's up for reelection to the Senate this year, and is sure to win in a landslide, so even if she runs and loses in 2008, her seat in the Senate is safe. So what's to stop her from running in 2008?

The Times piece says that "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."

Again, the sources aren't named and they don't say why she "may back out of the race."

Is there a reason for Senator Clinton to back out?

Well, yes, there is.

She could be looking at what happened to her fellow Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, realize that the nominee may well be decided by 200,000 die-hard party faithful in Iowa and New Hampshire, and realize that, although she may have name recognition, national appeal and a ton of money to throw around, she can't win over those 200,000 voters, who are apt to be more to the left than Democrats as a whole. Although she has recently been calling for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, the fact is that Hillary has been a pro-Iraq war hawk, backing up President Bush on his mad incursion into that country. And that support is going to cost her dearly in the early primaries, where it is safe to assume that the vast majority of voters will be violently anti-war.

"Her final decision is likely to be made next spring," the Times piece states. "One close friend of the Clintons said: “There is no way she won’t run for president.” According to a member of “Hillaryland”, her close-knit inner-circle, she would be letting herself and her supporters down if she declined to take a shot at the White House."

And she'll be letting Democrats down if she runs and loses, which I think is increasingly likely.

That having been said, I'm not inclined to place much credence in this story. I think that Senator Clinton wants to run, former President Clinton wants her to run, and all her crazed acolytes want her to run. At this point I think that anyone who seriously thinks she won't run for president is crazy.

But I think that Democrats, and the country, would be better off if she didn't. I think she'd do a good job in the office if she won (although I realize that the current occupant of the White House hasn't exactly set the bar terribly high), but I don't think she can win a general election.

The question is, who can?

Tom Moran