WILL THE CLINTONS STILL ADVERTISE THEMSELVES AS "TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE"?

This is Hillary's moment -- You go, girl! (Mark Steyn, 9/02/03, Jewish World Review)

What if you seriously believe that Bush is defeatable? Who's the best candidate to do that? Dean? Hmm. Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO supreme commander and lion of Kosovo, currently playing electoral footsie with the Dems? I don't think so. The one to watch is the candidate who polls better than any other against the incumbent: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Clintons didn't get where they are without being bold: No experts thought Bush Sr. could lose in '92, but an obscure Arkansas governor did; no experts thought a sitting first lady could run for office, but Hillary did. They had plenty of luck: Ross Perot vote-splitting in '92, and the pre-9/11 Rudy Giuliani going into emotional meltdown in 2000. But fortune favors the brave, and if Hillary was to shoot for the big one, I wouldn't be surprised if some equally unforeseen breaks go her way.

The way to look at it is like this: What does she have to gain by waiting four years? If Bush wins a second term, the Clinton aura will be very faded by 2008. And, if by some weird chance Bush loses to a Howard Dean, she's going to have to hang around till 2012. Logic dictates that, if Hillary wants to be president, it's this year or none. In her reflexive attacks on Bush over the war and the blackout and everything else, she already sounds like a candidate. The press will lapse into its familiar poodle mode (''Do you think you've been attacked so harshly because our society still has difficulty accepting a strong, intelligent woman?'' etc.). And, more to the point, when the party's busting to hand you the nomination, you only get one opportunity to refuse.

Realistically, Hillary has to decide in the next eight weeks. If the meteoric rise of Howard Dean has stalled by then, the answer's obvious. And, even if it hasn't, you need an awful lot of $20 Internet donations to counter a couple of checks from Barbra Streisand. This is Hillary's moment. You go, girl.

One thing to keep in mind is that when folks like Sam Nunn, Mario Cuomo, and Colin Powell decided that it wasn't their time to run, what they really determined was that they were never going to run. If Hillary ever plans to run she'll run now, when the nomination is hers for the asking, which means she's running.

MORE:
The Anti-Dean: Why Hillary opposes the Democratic front-runner. (John Fund, September 2, 2003, Wall Street Journal) Posted by Orrin Judd at September 2, 2003 12:32 PM