Can star power, money and her charismatic husband put Hillary Clinton in the White House, asks Denis Staunton in New York
More than 1,100 friends and supporters crowded into a massive tent in New York's Central Park to celebrate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's 59th birthday this week. After music from cool young balladeers The Fray and a plate of lasagne, the guests heard former president Bill Clinton pay tribute to his wife's emergence as the most important figure in Democratic politics.
"I think she's the ablest person I've known in public life . . . She represents the best of what I think our country is yearning for," he said.
Clinton herself, standing before a backdrop of the Stars and Stripes, said she hoped the party was not only a birthday celebration, but the celebration of a Democratic victory in congressional elections on November 7th.
"I hope there's a great outpouring across our country of people who say they've had enough, they're not going to put up with the arrogance and incompetence, a particularly lethal combination, any longer," she said.
Thursday night's party was Clinton's final fundraising event before she defends her New York Senate seat next month, in a race where she leads her little-known challenger by more than 30 points. Most Americans both inside and outside Clinton's tent, however, are looking beyond that election to 2008 and to her decision on whether to seek a return to the White House, this time as president.
Clinton says she has not yet made that decision and is fully focused on winning re-election to the Senate and helping the Democrats to win control of Congress. But a decision not to seek her party's nomination would be a political sensation.
Terry McAuliffe, former chairman of the Democratic Party and a close friend of both Clintons, says he has encouraged her to run in 2008.
"I think she'd be great for our country. I think she'd be great for the world . . . If she decides to run, I don't see any way she doesn't win the Democratic nomination," he says.
Clinton starts any presidential race with major advantages over other Democratic candidates, not the least of which is that she would be the most well-known non-incumbent ever to run for president. Her fame not only lends her star allure in America's celebrity-focused culture but also means that, when other candidates are chasing media attention, the media are chasing her.
Clinton not only has almost $50 million in campaign funds going into next month's election but also has an unrivalled capacity to raise more. More than 250,000 people from all over the US have contributed to her Senate campaign this year. A presidential campaign by her is likely to attract the most talented political operatives in the Democratic Party and would have the resources to employ the best outside strategists too. Even her political opponents acknowledge that Clinton is one of the most hard-working, disciplined and intellectually gifted legislators in the US, with a remarkable grasp of policy detail on both domestic and international issues.
Despite all these advantages, many Democrats are convinced that Clinton cannot become president and that by running, she could cost the party the White House for another four years. Some fear she is too polarising a figure, that Americans are not ready for a woman president or that voters will balk at the prospect of her husband returning to the White House with her. Others, on the left of the party, complain that Clinton has tacked so far to the right on national security and is so cautious politically that she no longer stands for anything. Some left-wing critics are determined that she should not be forgiven for voting to authorise President George W Bush to go to war in Iraq.
NEW YORK LAWYER Brian O'Dwyer, a Clinton friend and political supporter, argues that the experience of the last six years in New York shows that Clinton can win voters' confidence. Dismissed as a carpetbagger when she decided to run for the Senate in New York, she came from behind in the polls to win the seat by 12 points."If people give her half a chance, she's going to win them over. And she wins them over basically by being accessible and working hard and having probably the best staff on Capitol Hill, who love her," O'Dwyer says.
To understand Clinton's political style, you must travel far from the affluence and glamour of Manhattan to upstate New York, one of the most economically depressed regions of the US. Buffalo, near the border with Canada, bears all the marks of urban blight, with every other storefront boarded up and restaurants and bars standing almost empty.
Once a booming industrial city, the decline of its steelworks left thousands jobless and its population has declined steadily. But earlier this year, the city opened a Centre for Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, which director Bruce Holm hopes will form the nucleus of a new industrial identity for the region.Clinton was not the only politician to help the new centre to get off the ground, but Holm says that her help was particularly effective, because of who she is. "Her international connections in the global market have helped us to make it not just a state centre but one that interacts globally. There's no doubt that her power to convene based on the celebrity factor has been an enormous benefit."
IN 2002, SHE led a business delegation from upstate New York to Ireland, to study the Irish economic model and explore prospects for economic co- operation. Her record of involvement in Irish affairs and her personal connections ensured that the delegation had access to everyone from the Taoiseach downwards.
Clinton brings a pragmatic, problem-solving approach to local issues, working with Republicans as well as Democrats and winning over many conservatives to whom she was once anathema.
In the Senate, she has sponsored legislation with almost every Republican senator, including some who were among her husband's harshest critics. Her membership of the Armed Services Committee and her experience as a New York senator after the 9/11 attacks have helped her establish the national security credentials essential to any plausible presidential candidate.
"If she decides to run, she's the toughest Democrat we have. She checks the box on national security," says McAuliffe.
Clinton's tough national security credentials could prove crucial in counteracting prejudice among some voters who don't like the idea of a female Commander-in-Chief. Like all women in public life, Clinton faces a kind of scrutiny that male politicians are spared, with her dress and appearance pored over and criticised and every sign of passion open to being condemned as shrillness.
In person, she has a charming, easy manner far removed from the slightly stiff image she sometimes projects in public.
"To the people who know her, the word stiff would probably be the last one we'd use. She's extremely warm, she's extremely thoughtful. She has a great sense of humour and she's a terrible tease," says O'Dwyer.
Clinton's supporters know that a substantial minority of Americans will never vote for her but they point out that the country is so polarised that only a small minority of votes are in play in each election.
"I'd remind everybody, our nation is about 45 per cent Republican and 45 per cent Democrat. We've about 10 per cent swing votes," says McAuliffe.
CLINTON INSISTS THAT her vote to authorise the war in Iraq was meant to strengthen Bush's hand in persuading Saddam Hussein to allow weapons inspectors to return to Iraq. She says the administration assured her that they would seek a solution through the United Nations and that Bush misled legislators as well as the public before the war.
Her war vote has, however, alienated many Democrats, particularly among increasingly important netroots (internet activists), and could cost her victory in early primaries in liberal states such as New Hampshire.
Describing herself as a "neo-realist", Clinton favours a phased redeployment of US forces from Iraq, a return to multilateralism, and, although she is a strong supporter of Israel, she advocates greater US diplomatic engagement in the Middle East.
McAuliffe claims that Washington's relationship with its allies could only improve under a Clinton presidency.
"I don't think that relationship could be worse than it is today. I honestly believe that George Bush will go down as the worst president in United States history. I think Condi Rice will go down as the worst secretary of state," he says.
Perhaps the most intriguing question about a Clinton run for president is the role of her husband, who remains hugely popular among Democrats. Nostalgia for the relative prosperity and peace of the 1990s could make her association with his administration an advantage, but she must also be seen to be her own person.
The couple seldom appear together at political events, perhaps because, as she acknowledged on Thursday evening, Clinton cannot compete with her husband's rhetorical gifts.
"Nobody says it better. Nobody can more memorably explain what's going on in our country," she said.
McAuliffe dismisses fears that Clinton comes off badly in comparison with her husband, who left office with the highest approval rating in modern presidential history.
"I think everybody suffers in comparison to Bill Clinton. He's probably the best politician we've had . . . They were a team and, whatever attributes Bill Clinton had, she has her own," he says.
Some Democrats fear that her husband's history of sexual peccadillos could derail a Clinton run for president, and others worry that voters simply won't like the idea of both Clintons in the White House.
McAuliffe believes Clinton should appoint the former president as an ambassador-at-large, with a special role in seeking to broker peace in the Middle East and to repair Washington's relations with other capitals.
As she prepares to sweep back into the Senate with a greatly enhanced majority, Clinton remains the front-runner to win the Democratic nomination for president. Clinton's supporters acknowledge that Republican front-runner John McCain, a war hero with a reputation for political independence, would be a very difficult candidate to beat, but O'Dwyer maintains that she has a good chance of victory if she can properly introduce herself to the American people.
"I think the greatest weakness is overcoming these perceptions that the right has put out about her. She did it in New York. The question is, does she have enough time and enough money to do that with the general public?"