Hillary Gets Promotion.
Roll Call reports that Senate Democratic leaders are expected to name Hillary to their leadership team next year to help develop a plan to counter the Republicans. The promotion would put Sen. Clinton in charge of the Steering and Coordination Committee, a mid-level leadership position that is appointed by soon-to-be Minority Leader Thomas Daschle (S.D.). As chairman of the Steering committee, Hillary would act as a liaison with outside groups and organizations to help build support for key Democratic legislative proposals. According to a Democratic source, "Nobody better understands the resources that the right has mustered to clobber Democrats. From the money to the media manipulation, she gets it." Another Democratic strategist said that Hillary "can articulate our needs and goals better than anyone." Sen. Clinton did not directly discuss a possible leadership job, but said that she is willing to do what is needed to help spread the Democratic message. "I don’t have any inside info on what is going to happen, but whatever happens I will help in any way I can with all of my colleagues to try to do a better job, because we have a great story to tell," said Hillary. "We have to be more effective in not only telling it, but drawing the distinction. Where we agree [with Republicans], we should make that clear so there is not doubt about where our points of agreement are on behalf of the country, and where we disagree, we should be much clearer. . . . Where we have areas of new proposals and ideas that we think would move us forward we should do that." Roll Call reveals that in the wake of the recent elections, Democratic leaders have decided they need all the muscle they can muster now that Republicans control both the congressional and White House bully pulpits. "We need more ammo. . . more firepower and a better system of delivery," said a top Democratic source. "Hillary is a strong catalyst for this."
Good News, Bad News.
The good news from the Democrats’ election debacle for Hillary is that she will now move up 10 rungs on the seniority ladder. The bad news, obviously, is that the Republican takeover of the Senate now leaves Hillary as part of the minority. She could even lose a spot on a committee to make room for a Republican, and she will definitely lose the authority delegated by Democratic leaders to call hearings to scrutinize the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s post-September 11 aid to New York. However, even her status as part of the minority party is softened by the fact that the minority in the Senate has great power, in contrast to the House of Representatives. In fact, Sen. Clinton said that "I don’t think it’ll change much at all. The margin is still very tight and we have to build coalitions and relationships on both sides of the aisle to get anything done."
She Will Not Serve.
In an interview with Barbara Walters last Friday, Al Gore said he would certainly consider asking Sen. Hillary Clinton to be his running mate in 2004 should he win their party’s presidential nomination. According to United Press International, Hillary’s answer would be "no," but UPI’s reasoning is a little strange: "Her spokesman continues to point out that she is committed to serving out the full six-year term to which she was elected in 2000-just as her husband Bill promised in 1990 that he would serve out the full four-year term as governor of Arkansas were the voters of the state to re-elect him." Of course, everyone knows-everyone, apparently, but UPI-that although Bill made that promise to the people of Arkansas, his word was good for less than a year, as he began his campaign for President in 1991. Despite the flawed reasoning, UPI goes on to note that "the idea of Mrs. Clinton on the national Democrat ticket is something over which both parties seem to be salivating. Republicans think she would make it much easier for them to win because her liberal views are so far out of step with the rest of the country. Democrats seem to see her as a potential savior, the light that will guide them out of the party’s increasingly dark prospects for the future. More and more it looks like the idea of another Clinton running on the national ticket is a matter of when, not if."
Separated at Birth?
The Fort-Worth Star-Telegram ran an interesting piece propounding the theory that "Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole are one and the same person." As evidence, the paper cites the following facts: both are U.S. senators; both have law degrees from Ivy League schools-Hillary from Yale, Liddy from Harvard; both were raised Methodist; both married their husbands in 1975, both of their men ran for President, both women have either run for President or are expected to; both had political "flip-flops" early on in their lives-Hillary was president of the Young Republicans at Wellesley College, while Liddy worked in the Office of Consumer Affairs in the Johnson White House, and both have cookie recipes published online at cookierecipe.com: Hillary’s recipe is for chocolate chip cookies, while Liddy’s is for pecan roll cookies
