Posted on 09/29/2003 8:06:07 AM PDT by presidio9
She has denied it, and denied it again, and still the Washington rumor mill persists in speculating: Is Hillary Clinton (news - web sites) planning a run for the White House in 2004?
The crowded field of Democrats running for the White House already stands at 10, and Clinton tried again this past week to squelch suggestions that she intended to become presidential contender number 11.
"I'm not running," she said at a breakfast with political reporters.
When asked whether anything could convince her to change her mind, she shook her head and said firmly: "No."
That seemingly definitive answer has not put an end to the speculation, however.
The rumors are fueled in part by Democrats wistful for the era that ended in 2000, when Hillary's husband Bill Clinton (news - web sites) left the White House.
Many stalwart Democrats feel convinced that incumbent Republican President George W. Bush (news - web sites) can be defeated if a challenger with enough star power goes up against him, and point out that Hillary continues to have the best poll numbers of any Democrat around.
A Newsweek survey this month showed her to be the preferred choice of 33 percent of Democratic voters, far higher than any Democrat in the race. Another poll -- taken for Quinnipiac University before retired army general Wesley Clark (news - web sites) entered the race -- found that Clinton would win the support of 45 percent of Democrats, more than the nine other candidates combined.
If she were to change her mind and seek the White House, Clinton would have to break a promise made to residents of New York state while on the campaign trail in 2000 that if elected to the US Senate she would serve out her full six-year term -- one major disincentive to seeking the presidency in 2004.
And she would also have to devise a strategy for countering the barbs of all of her detractors -- and they are legion, particularly among core Republicans -- who would move heaven and earth to prevent a return of the Clintons to the White House.
Hillary has her husband to blame, in part, for the fact that she is having to spend so much time denying presidential ambitions.
Recent remarks by former president Bill Clinton seemed to leave the door open for a Hillary presidential candidacy when he told a California audience earlier this month, "that's really a decision for her to make."
Conspiracy theorists also have gotten into the act, promoting a hypothesis that Wesley Clark, a longtime Clinton associate, entered the presidential race as a sort of a place holder for Hillary, who will make her own bid later in the election season after he has bumped off all the early Democratic challengers.
"If Bush stumbles and the Democratic nomination becomes highly valuable, the Clintons probably think they would be able to get Clark to step aside without splintering the party, rewarding his loyalty with second place on the ticket," one proponent of that theory, columnist William Safire, wrote in a New York Times opinion piece this past week.
"That's an absurd feat of imagination," was Clinton's response when asked about such a scenario.
"I'm very happy doing what I'm doing," she said. "I have my hands full."
For diehards who refuse to take no for an answer, there are two websites, hillarynow.com and votehillary.org, supported by thousands of Americans hoping the former first lady will change her mind and become a 2004 presidential candidate.
But the window of opportunity is closing if she does plan to run, because she'd be far behind the other candidates in fundraising and campaign organization, said Washington historian Allan Lichtman, a longtime observer of presidential politics.
"I thought she should run, but it's getting late," Lichtman said.
CASCA I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown;--yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets;--and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement hooted and clapped their chapped hands and threw up their sweaty night-caps and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swounded and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.
Then perhaps you should read it again, keeping in mind that the context of the quote is Hillary's "denials" that she'll run for president.
"Ahhh...keeping promises to little people are for little people."
This writer makes it sound as if she's not guilty of ever committing a crime and the only thing wrong are her "detractors". This woman has gained POWER w/ out any merit what-so-ever, regularly practices confrontational politics and is an extreme leftist,SO, it really isn't difficult to imagine her "...devising a strategy to counter the barbs of all of her detractors..." and with considerable ease I might add!
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