The Washington Post goes on for five pages about whether Bill Clinton will be a plus or a minus for Hillary's presidential campaign.

Not much news here. Shorter version: He's both. Must be a slow news day. It sure shouldn't have taken five pages to point that out, especially when neither Bill nor Hillary were interviewed for the piece.

My view: Bottom line: He's a huge asset. He's a political dynamo and a statesman. She's smart and a hard worker. She's held her own as Senator, she'd do the same as President. It'd be nice to have him back in the White House, even as First Spouse.

It's looking even more likely today that Hillary Clinton is going to put her hat in the 2008 presidential ring. She's hired a veteran national political fundraiser.

Phil Singer, a veteran of Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign who most recently was spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, will join the Clinton communications team, her senior adviser Howard Wolfson said.

Wolfson cautioned that Clinton may still decide against a run but that Singer would play a senior role if she becomes a candidate, as expected. "I called him the day after the election," Wolfson acknowledged.

More new hires:

Karen Hicks, a veteran field organizer who served as New Hampshire director for Howard Dean's upstart 2004 campaign...The campaign has also signed a national finance director, veteran Democratic fundraiser Jonathan Mantz.

Update: Arianna thinks Obama is going to upset the Hillary cart.

Hillary Clinton has begun discussions with New York Democratic leaders about running for President in 2008.

I think she will run. She remains a favorite in early polling, but will it last?

I think a Hillary/Obama ticket would be a formidable one. Who else can you think of as a vice-presidential candidate for Hillary?

Also today, Evan Bayh of Indiana announced an exploratory committee to decide whether he will run for President. The Wall St. Journal has more on Hillary and Bayh.

Update: The New York Times reports on the Obama complication. And Arianna is not impressed by the Times coverage.

In outlining her legislative agenda today, Hillary Clinton said she's open to thoughts about a 2008 presidential run.

"I will look at the possibilities, but I ... haven't really had the time to talk to people about it," Clinton told a breakfast gathering hosted by the Association for a Better New York. "It's been a busy election season that worked out well, so I will think about it. I'm open to thoughts."

She also re-affirmed her centrist position.

"We are ready to roll up our sleeves and work with our Republican counterparts. Our country works best when we govern from the vital, dynamic center," she said.

Taking a look back at when she went public with her decision to run for the Senate in 2000: June, 1999: She announced her exploratory committee would form in July.

November 11, 1999 (Adam Nagourney, New York Times, available on Lexis.com),

Hillary Rosen at HuffPo writes that Obama is no threat to Hillary Clinton in a 2008 Presidential run.

Yet Hillary's detractors see her as too liberal, too fresh, too ambitious --- too unelectable. Next to Obama you can't help but think she looks a downright conventional choice.

I see Obama as a centrist, not a liberal. I see Hillary Clinton as a centrist.

Wouldn't that be a close to perfect pairing for 2008, the two centrists, a female and an African-American?

One of the questions I have with a Hillary Clinton candidacy is which male contender would agree to run with her in the VP slot? For John Edwards, John Kerry, and most of the other names we know, they might perceive it as a step down to accept the VP slot after campaigning so hard for the Presidential nomination. But for Obama, who has limited experience in the national forum, it would be a step up. He'd probably jump at the chance.

So maybe that's where all this "Obama may run for President in '08" talk is coming from.

I still don't see who anointed him and why, but the media is biting and he's bound to become a household word before too long.

by TChris

Since Hillary Clinton is a lock to be reelected to her senate seat, it's difficult to understand why the GOP candidates battling for a primary win are being so vicious to each other.

[John] Spencer and [Kathleen] McFarland have engaged in one of the strangest primary campaigns the state has seen in recent years - a frothy and often torrid soap opera that has delighted New York's infamous tabloids while puzzling political observers. The contest has been dominated by tales of adultery, child sexual abuse, elitism and nepotism, with a bit of teenage shoplifting thrown in.

Is the answer that Republican candidates are so mean-spirited by nature that they can't resist being nasty, turning a meaningless primary faceoff into "a pointless exercise in personal humiliation"?

I wasn't going to blog this weekend, but this Sunday Times (London) article stands out as too much baloney for me not to make a quick comment. The premise:

FRIENDS of Hillary Clinton have been whispering the unthinkable. Despite her status as the runaway frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president, some of her closest advisers say she might opt out of the White House race and seek to lead her party in the Senate.

Here's the tip-off to me it's total spin:

The solution, insiders say, is for Clinton to take over as Senate minority leader in 2009 from the lacklustre Harry Reid, senator for Nevada.

Since the "insiders" are assuming Hillary would be a "minority" leader in 2009, they are proclaiming Republicans will maintain a majority in the Senate in 2008. Now, who would be saying that? Certainly no one who was a "Democratic" insider.

If Hillary wants to run, she'll run. I suspect the only people who know which way she's inclined right now are Bill Clinton and her campaign staff. Even though I don't like this article, there's a line from Terry Mcauliffe that warrants repeating. In describing the effect Bill Clinton's support for Hillary could have on any future election, he states:

He is probably the most popular politician in the world."

I think you can take that one to the bank.

James Carville and Mark J. Penn have an op-ed in today's Washington Post positing that Hillary Clinton is electable and that the key may be women voters.

The X factor for 2008 -- and we do mean X -- is the power of women in the electorate. Fifty-four percent of voters are female. George Bush increased his vote with only two groups between 2000 and 2004: women and Hispanics.

...Hillary's candidacy has the potential to reshape the electoral map for Democrats. ....with the pathbreaking possibility of this country's first female president, we could see an explosion of women voting -- and voting Democratic. States that were close in the past, from Arkansas to Colorado to Florida to Ohio, could well move to the Democratic column. It takes only one more state to win.

They discount her polarization factor ("some people say she is too liberal, some that she is too conservative") pointing out:

We believe that she is squarely in the mainstream of America.

Arianna writes that yesterday's speeches by Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, both of which criticized the Bush Administration, are like coming attractions to the 2008 Democratic presidiential nomination.

Arianna notes that while Hillary has been a terrific Senator, it's hard to go from sitting Senator to President (she lists John Kerry as a prime example) and says right now, she thinks Gore has the edge.

We'll see how the race develops, but right now I'd put my money on Gore. He didn't just get rid of the beard, he also got rid of the mitigating, the qualifying, and the equivocating that plagues sitting senators.

I'll give the edge to Gore for another reason. Half the country thinks the 2000 election was stolen from him, and they will want to right the wrong that was done to him. Had Gore been elected in 2000, he'd be on his second term. There would have been no war in Iraq, no John Roberts or Sam Alito on the Supreme Court and there would be a lockbox on our social security.

On the other hand, we'd still have mandatory minimum sentences and the death penalty. But Hillary supports those too. And the Clinton-Gore Administration pushed new wiretapping powers and habeas restrictions in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. (See my 1996 article for more on this.) I'm not ready to pick either one right now.

Bump and Update: It's now official. Jeanine Pirro has issued a statement announcing she's dropping out of the Senate race. She says her heart is in the Attorney General's race. Reuters is less than kind, repeating the worst about Pirro -- her husband:

One political problem for Pirro, who frequently appears on national talk shows and was listed by People Magazine in 1997 as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world, was her marriage. Albert Pirro fathered an out-of-wedlock child and served 11 months in federal prison for tax fraud.

The paper also notes that Jeanine supports abortion and gay rights which conservatives could hold against her. That should be no problem in the AG's race, where she more than overcompensates by wanting life plus cancer for every person charged with a sex offense. [hyperbole, but only slight.]

******
Original Post:

Arianna posts this leaked memo from the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign which, if for real, is enough for me to say "No Hillary" rather than "Go Hillary" in 2008.

But I suspect the memo is a fake, particularly due to the inclusion of this paragraph:

The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is being held on August 7th, and we expect HRC to be the “Grand Marshall.” HRC has agreed to get three tattoos. Thoughts? Top suggestions so far: “Semper Fi,” “Live Fast Die Young”, and “Senators Do It on the Floor”. Check local chapter of Hell’s Angels for endorsement and temp renaming to “Hillary’s Angels”. Must be sure HRC’s motorcycle lessons are completed by then, and remind her to call her bike her “hog”. Also, what size bustier and leather skirt is HRC?

Update: Arianna intended it as a parody, she wrote the whole thing. In that light, it's very, very funny.

The New York Post has an incredible story today alleging that Al Pirro, Jeanine's husband, was behind the recent requests by Republican higher-ups for Jeanine to drop the Senate race and run for Attorney General instead. [Via Kevin Drum]

Jeanine Pirro's own husband is working against her in her bid for the U.S. Senate, sneaking around behind her back to lobby a state Republican leader to get her to drop out of the race, sources told The Post. Gov. Pataki also was part of the extraordinary plot to get the Westchester County DA — whom he endorsed for the race before becoming convinced she wasn't up to the effort — to throw in the towel and run for attorney general, not for Senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Post has learned.

Details of the request are here. TalkLeft background on Al Pirro is here. Also see TChris's Pirro Plays the Crime Card.

If you missed my post on why I'm covering Jeanine's run, it's here.