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Oped says time for hillary { February 18 2005 }

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   http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/212512_means18.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/212512_means18.html

OPINION

Friday, February 18, 2005

Time appears right for Hillary to run

By MARIANNE MEANS
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

WASHINGTON -- A mere four years ago, an undistinguished, forgettable Republican congressman named Rick Lazio campaigned for a vacant New York Senate slot with one message: I am not Hillary.

But Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton let him have it. The former first lady flattened him, winning the Senate seat by the convincing margin of 12 percentage points.

She has, by most accounts, been a hard-working, responsible senator and is favored to win re-election next year. And then? Recent polls report that Clinton leads the field for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

This is politically exciting, and risky. When Walter Mondale picked Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, I wept openly -- as did every other woman I saw that day at the 1984 Democratic Convention. It was a dramatic political breakthrough for our gender.

Alas, it was a heady but temporary delusion. Not much short-term good came of it. The ticket lost, although it was Mondale's fault more than Ferraro's.

At the time, there were only two female senators, Paula Hawkins of Florida and Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas -- both Republicans. And when Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., tried to run for president four years later, she couldn't raise enough money to get through the first primary.

Fortunately, times change. Now there are 14 female senators and a passel of female House members. Eight states are governed by women. As a nation, we are getting used to the idea of women in political power.

Maybe we are ready now for the next step up. Seriously ready. Other countries have chosen female prime ministers or presidents and survived just fine. And in Clinton, we have one of the most celebrated political figures of our time.

A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll last week found that 40 percent of the Democrats polled said they would be most likely to support Clinton for president, 25 percent said they favored Sen. John Kerry and 18 percent said former Sen. John Edwards. Only 17 percent had no opinion or picked "someone else." (If former Vice President Al Gore is really interested in running, as rumored, he's got a great deal of footwork to do.)

Among Republicans, the poll showed a tight two-man race, with Rudy Giuliani running slightly ahead of Sen. John McCain. The president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist trailed badly.

An Ipsos-Public Affairs poll in December showed Clinton leading the field with 33 percent of Democrats polled; Sen. John Kerry was far behind with 19 percent.

A Fox News poll that month showed Clinton beating Frist 40 percent to 33 percent; beating New York Gov. George Pataki 41 percent to 35 percent and Gov. Bush 46 percent to 35 percent.

Fox News also asked if those polled thought Clinton is qualified to be president; 59 percent said she is, clearing a major credibility hurdle that has handicapped past women in public life.

Speculating about the 2008 presidential election is fun, but obviously wildly premature. Much can happen in four years. Clinton won't admit to presidential ambitions until she is safely re-elected in 2006.

She comes with considerable political baggage, including the scandals from her White House years and the collapse of her much-hyped advocacy of health care reform early on in the Bill Clinton presidency. Republicans have a habit of demonizing her. Polls have consistently indicated roughly four of 10 Americans simply don't like her, for whatever reason. She is as polarizing a figure among conservatives as President George Bush is among liberals.

But she would also bring formidable assets. She can raise money, producing more than $40 million for her own campaign and millions more for other Democrats. She serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and has been active in work for veterans, which should help to defuse the old notion that a woman is unfit to be commander in chief. She has a moderate-left voting record, which should undercut the GOP charge that she is too liberal. The new National Journal vote rankings give her a composite liberal score of 71 this year, with a lifetime ranking of 80.7. By comparison, Kerry's lifetime score is 85.7. (He was given no rating for last year, because he missed so many votes while away campaigning.)

In the past year, she has sided with conservatives on several key economic and foreign-policy votes, lowering her composite vote ratings toward the center. She also voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state and recently reached out to anti-abortion conservatives in a search for "common ground," although she did not back away from her basic pro-choice stance. It's clear she is a liberal senator and a stalwart Democrat, opposing the president's plan to carve private accounts out of the Social Security payroll tax and his budget priorities. But she is no flip-flopper. Call her one, and you lose.

Marianne Means is a Washington, D.C., columnist with Hearst Newspapers. Copyright 2005 Hearst Newspapers. She can be reached at 202-263-6400 or means@hearstdc.com.



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