The Hillary juggernaut

The rank and file may be against her, but numbers (and dollars) don't lie. Why Clinton may already be unstoppable.

By Walter Shapiro

Read more: Democratic Party, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Politics, News, Walter Shapiro, 2008 election

March 23, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- In the most telling bipartisan effort to consign George W. Bush to irrelevancy, the 2008 presidential race has already begun -- six months earlier than any comparable contest in modern history. The Republicans, who otherwise might have been expected to be still basking in Bush's reelection, conducted White House auditions in Memphis, Tenn., earlier this month, complete with a presidential preference straw poll. The Democrats do not have anything that formal on the party's immediate agenda, but virtually every week a potential 2008 contender concocts an excuse to visit the first primary state, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who dropped by New Hampshire last weekend.

Hillary Clinton, who hovers over the presidential field like the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, can afford to argue, as she does at private fund-raisers, that this fast-forward obsession with 2008 is an unnecessary distraction from the immediate task of recapturing Congress. Other would-be Democratic presidents -- including current flavor-of-the-month former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner -- do not have Hillary's luxury of dynamic inaction. For them, initial decisions have to be made about campaign strategy, fundraising, staffing and key issues well before the November congressional elections.

This is why one of the major occupations of Democratic consultants and party insiders these days is writing memos about the probable rigors and potential rewards of the 2008 race. After a series of not-for-quotation conversations with prominent members of the Democratic memo-writing class, I have a sense of what the White House dreamers have been hearing, especially about running against Hillary. In an effort to convey what has been happening behind the scenes, I have distilled this wisdom (conventional and otherwise) into the following memo to an imaginary Democratic presidential possibility with the fine old political name of John P. Wintergreen:

Memo

To: JPW
From: Walter Shapiro
Subject: Running to Win in 2008

Let's not be under any illusions here. If you get into the presidential race (and you have repeatedly told me that you're ready to spend the next two years getting four hours sleep per night in Holiday Inns), you have to assume that you're going up against Hillary, since I put the chances of her running at 80 percent. If she somehow bows out at the last moment like Mario Cuomo in 1991, you can consider yourself the luckiest border-state governor in America.

But otherwise, you will face in Hillary the most formidable presidential front-runner in modern political history. (And, yes, I am counting George W. Bush in 2000.) Here are 10 reasons why the junior senator from New York will be a daunting foe:

1) Universal name recognition. (In contrast, JPW, only 3 percent of likely Democratic primary voters know that you were originally the president in the Gershwin classic "Of Thee I Sing.")

2) Her capacity to raise $100 million without once working late into the night cold-calling strangers to beg and grovel for money.

3) The ability to dominate the free media. Hillary will never make a public appearance in this campaign without being tracked by 100 reporters. (In contrast, JPW, imagine how much coverage you will get for your first press conference bragging about your gubernatorial record and the "Tennetucky Miracle.")

4) Her emotional support from a significant percentage of women voters out to make history.

5) Nostalgia for the Clinton era of peace and prosperity in the 1990s.

6) Continuing Democratic resentment over impeachment.

7) Hillary's over-cautious political style that avoids risk and, quite likely, deliberate mistakes.

8) The most potent candidate surrogate in political history in the form of Bill Clinton.

9) The ability of the Clinton name and legacy to attract 75 percent of the African-American vote and a large slice of the Hispanic vote.

10) At least a half-dozen candidates (including JPW) who will divide the anti-Hillary Democrats, so that she could win major primaries with just her hardcore base of, say, 35 percent of the vote.

This is obviously not a race for the fainthearted. But there is a ray of hope -- and, no, I am not talking about the "Tennetucky Miracle."

No presidential favorite in the history of contested primaries has ever had the nomination handed to him by acclamation. For every Bush in 2000, there is always a John McCain to emerge out of nowhere to add drama and uncertainty to the horse race. The press has a vested interest in a hard-fought contest -- and Democrats, in particular, like being given more of a choice than voters in, say, North Korea. So Hillary will have, at minimum, one serious challenger and a few nail-bitingly anxious weeks on the road to the convention. Your goal, JPW, is, of course, to be the dragon-slayer who stops her.

Next page: The other contenders, the hefty price of admission, and a Hillary-friendly calendar