http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-carlson25nov25.story MARGARET CARLSON
White House Via Arkansas?
MARGARET CARLSON November 25, 2004
Last week's dedication of the Clinton Library may be remembered as the moment when Bill Clinton launched his ultimate gambit to be the comeback kid — this time via his wife. He huddled under an umbrella, frailer and thinner, clasping Hillary's hand and swallowing back tears. I thought of the title of Clinton's first book, "Between Hope and History," as Bill Clinton, officially and literally, became the latter — his presidency boxed inside a massive edifice of glass and steel — and Hillary became the hope of the Democratic Party.<snip>
Kerry's loss clears the way for '08, but will a party that just lost by fielding a senator tagged as a liberal from a Northeastern state filled with elitists without moral values immediately consider another? That's where the library can help Hillary (D-Blue State). Unlike Kerry, she's proficient at dropping her "g's" below the Mason-Dixon Line, but now she can also restore her red-state roots by decamping frequently to the Clintons' luxurious pied a terre built into a wing of the library in Little Rock. Goodbye, Martha's Vineyard. Hello, Ozarks.
I could go into all the reasons why a skirt and a skirt-chaser are not coming in or coming back in '08. But I was completely wrong in 2000 when I insisted Hillary would not abdicate the White House to run for office from a state she'd only previously visited as a tourist. The nerve, the gall, the anti-feminist derivativeness of it, when actually it was genius of a post-post-feminist kind, taking immediate advantage of standing by a man cheating on you. She listened, she learned milk-price supports, she drew a weak opponent, and she moved back to Washington as a senator at the very moment her husband was moving out. How could I have missed that one? <snip>
With Hillary, it's the opposite. Every poll, except those of a certain Chappaqua household, show her losing to a Republican while winning the primaries big time. But, oh, the passion. Democrats have fallen in love and they can't get up. They love her over issues and out of nostalgia for Fleetwood Mac. A big slice of the party hasn't stopped thinking about tomorrow.
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I could predict that Hillary would lose upward of 35 states in '08, but I don't want to make a career of underestimating her. It's just possible, if Bush is precedent, that Bill could be holding the Bible for his wife in 2008. A Clinton succeeding a Bush who succeeded a Clinton who succeeded a Bush? That's some kind of history.