Her denial that there's anything to the speculation that she's running next year and not in '08 — a denial far short of a Sherman — hews carefully to a script carefully worked out by the fun couple.
She is "absolutely ruling it out," the former first lady told reporters in New York. Well, of course she is. Ruling it in comes later. She didn't say, as the infamous Tecumseh Sherman famously did, that she wouldn't run if nominated and wouldn't serve if elected.
Clintonspeak is not difficult to parse. Bill was similarly coy, back in Arkansas in that other century, making a solemn promise to his constituents that if they would elect him governor one more time he would absolutely, positively serve the full term and not even think about the White House. The dust had hardly settled on the Bible on which he made his oath before he was on his way to New Hampshire.
Organizing a spontaneous draft is not easy, but this one will be easier than most. There's even a secondary "draft" under way, to get Wesley Clark in place to be her running mate, as cover in a time of war for that well-known Clinton loathing of the men and women of the military.
Desperate is as desperate does, and panic is the only way the Democrats can keep their wits about them. Who but a nanny can burp and diaper a party with a terminal case of the colic? .... Rest of Wes Pruden column
But Clinton supporters have other reasons to be leery of a Dean candidacy. In June, the Drudge Report noted that Mr. Dean had confided to associates that he intended to change the leadership of the Democratic National Committee if he became the party's nominee.
A Dean adviser told Drudge that "it is important . . .to mark a new beginning, cut ties from the past."
Mr. Dean feels that Mr. McAuliffe, who served as Mr. Clinton's finance chairman in the 1996 election, has not performed well under pressure and was the architect of last year's disastrous off-year election results in which the Democrats became the first party out of power to lose seats in a mid-term election in over 60 years. Mr. McAuliffe is so controversial among Democratic activists that recently he has not been signing the patry's fund-raising mail. A no-name deputy now signs the direct mail appeals for funds. Mr. McAuliffe still has the confidence of Bill and Hillary Clinton, but his circle of admirers beyond that is limited.
Joe Trippi, Mr. Dean's campaign manager, disputed the Drudge account saying "No one from the Dean campaign leaked anything to Drudge. This report is like a National Enquirer headline." Doesn't sound like an unequivocal denial to me. Mr. McAuliffe has gone out of his way not to criticize Mr. Dean since the Drudge item, but privately is aware of the fact that Mr. Dean is the only one of the Democratic candidates who is hostile to his remaining as chairman. link