@Miller,
November 3, 2008
Soldiering On, Clinton Preserves Her Options
By PATRICK HEALY
WINTER PARK, Fla. " Her crowds are smaller now, and most of the reporters are gone. The campaign posters say his name, not hers. And instead of championing her ideas for health insurance or tax relief, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is giving out 1-800 numbers and Internet addresses for Senator Barack Obama’s campaign.
Watching Mrs. Clinton campaign for her old rival, masking what friends say is lingering disappointment, it is easy to recall happier days. While she often said, during her 17-month race, that it took “a Clinton to clean up after a Bush,” she has now tweaked that line a bit.
“It took a Democratic president to clean up after the first President Bush,” she said to cheers at a rally here on Saturday in the political battleground of central Florida. “It will take a Democratic president to clean up after the next President Bush!”
Moments later, she made another comment that echoed a Clinton campaign advertisement that ran on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary in which Mrs. Clinton warned voters not to “take a leap of faith” with Mr. Obama to protect the country.
But for the crowd in Winter Park, Mrs. Clinton had this to say: “I’m not asking anyone to take a leap of faith, I’m just saying, look at the evidence,” arguing that Mr. Obama’s economic proposals were far better than Mr. McCain’s.
The bitterness of that long primary battle, however, is the last thing that Obama supporters brought up about Mrs. Clinton in Florida last weekend. Of 20 interviewed, all effusively praised her. All 20 said that if Mr. Obama won, they hoped that she would be his secretary of state or that she would shepherd his health care or energy bills through the Senate. All 20 said they hoped she would run for president again.
“I would have supported her this year if not for her vote for the Iraq war and the fact that she never said it was a mistake,” said Jocelyn Bartkevicius, a Democrat and writer and editor who attended the rally here. “But she has been so strong for Obama this fall, such a good sport. I wouldn’t hold a long-term grudge. I’d be with her next time.”
For the friends and allies already thinking about Mrs. Clinton’s political future, the possibility of a victory by Senator John McCain on Tuesday would upend an array of assumptions, not least of which that Mrs. Clinton " if she were to run again " would not do so until 2016, when she would be turning 69. At the same time, under a McCain presidency, Mrs. Clinton could be well positioned, given her friendship with him and good standing among Washington Republicans, to help him with a Democratic-led Congress on alternative energy, which they have both highlighted on the campaign trail.
While Mrs. Clinton’s high profile in Democratic politics has been fortified by her work for Mr. Obama, her friends say it is too soon to say what the future holds for her. For one thing, they say, she is not over her primary loss: some days it is hard for her, even a little heart-breaking, to campaign for Mr. Obama, given how much she wanted to be president.
Others say that she is being a good soldier because she wants to be a power player in Washington if Mr. Obama wins but that she is not sure what her role might be. “She is a human being,” said Jill Iscol, a good friend and former supporter of Mrs. Clinton. “She’s a real person, and so she has her feelings, but what matters to her most right now is making sure Obama wins. ”
Mrs. Clinton told Fox News last month that there was “probably zero” chance of her becoming Senate majority leader. Several Senate Democratic aides concur, noting that many of her colleagues supported Mr. Obama for president. Asked about the chances that she would run again for president, she said, “Probably close to zero.” (The question was not predicated on whether Mr. Obama would win or lose on Tuesday.) Supreme Court nominee? “Zero,” she said. “I have no interest in doing that.”
While Mrs. Clinton still has a campaign debt of several million dollars, she has been steadily raising money for her political action committee, which advisers say could become a means to champion women’s issues.
Mrs. Clinton won about 17 million votes in her presidential primary campaign, and by all accounts she will emerge on Election Day as a respected force in the eyes of not only her allies but also of people around Mr. Obama, for whom she has raised several million dollars and done more than 75 rallies, fund-raisers, conference calls and other tasks.
“It’s one of those times where she has won by losing, in a very real sense,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, her Democratic colleague from New York. “Whether people were with her, like I was, or not with her, I think everyone’s respect for her in the Senate has gone up in the way she has handled herself since the end of the race.”
Over the long term, some political allies believe that Mrs. Clinton would be a strong choice to lead the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2010, given her fund-raising contacts, her eye for political talent and her proven ability to raise money for the party. She has helped several Senate candidates this year.
Mr. Schumer also led the senatorial committee in 2006; he said he would not think until after Tuesday about doing it again. Some advisers to Mrs. Clinton said that the idea was intriguing but that they did not know how she felt about it. She declined to be interviewed for this article.
In the near term " the first year of the next presidential administration " several associates said she would like to be an ally of the White House’s next occupant, whoever that is.
For a President Obama, her favorite, Clinton advisers say she might be positioned to be a point person on his proposal for expanding access to health insurance or for his energy plan, two issues that she and Mr. Obama promoted during the primaries.
Her hand in health care depends largely, her advisers say, on Senator Edward M. Kennedy, given his experience with health care issues and his seniority. Mr. Kennedy has been in the Senate for 46 years, Mrs. Clinton for 8, and she does not hold a committee chairmanship, where real power resides.
Mr. Kennedy has been battling cancer, and many Washington Democrats believe that he will be too ill to carry a major legislative program. But Mrs. Clinton, like other Democrats, would defer to him.
For a President McCain, on the other hand, Mrs. Clinton might be an emissary between his White House and a Democratic-led Congress.
“She has done more for Obama than Dean did in 2004 for Kerry, more than Bradley did for Gore in 2000, more than Kennedy did for Carter in 1980,” said James A. Thurber, the director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. “As much as this must hurt her, she has been the ultimate trooper this fall.”
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