In Defense of Hillary

[Erc]

Personally, I think a Hillary candidacy is pretty inevitable, assuming she wins reelection in '06.

A)  She's got the liberal wing of the party under wraps.  Dean will be nice and happy as the DNC Chairman (and will do everything in his power to help her out).  Gore's gone beyond the point of no return...so who's left?  Russ Feingold?  Nope, she's got the liberal base.

B) She has the Clinton Machine (tm).  Yes, the Machine failed pretty miserably with Clark, but that was mainly Clark's fault, not the Clintons'.  Now they have a candidate who is obviously one of their own--so no mishaps here.  Plus the Machine (tm) ensures that some other Democrats who were helped out by the Machine [namely, Bill Richardson] don't run.

C) She's a Clinton.  The Democrats love Bill.  His campaigning may not always be the most effective on a national scale, but within his own party--the Democrats have very good memories of Clinton, who's their only truly successful politician in recent memory.  If she can evoke the Clinton memories, then she has a significant edge up over people like Warner and Bayh who will be running as moderate pseudo-Clintons.

There will be a large anti-Hillary campaign, of course, as many Democrats just don't like her, and, of course, the electability problem.  But unless they rally around one candidate, she'll have enough of a base to steamroll her way to the Convention.