The desire to flatter Hillary Rodham Clinton apparently knows no bounds. Barely a month after a campaign began to urge the first lady to run for the Senate in New York in 2000, some admirers, including ABC's Carole Simpson, are pointing out the obvious: Hillary is already a national figure, so why aim low? She should run for president.
Why not? Leaving aside the fact that the Gores can't be very happy to hear such speculation, the numbers don't look bad for Hillary. Pollster Scott Rasmussen in late February found only a two-point lead for the vice president in a head-to-head contest with the first lady among likely Democratic voters.
The exact question asked was this: "Suppose that, in selecting the Democratic candidate for President, you had a choice between Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. If the election was held today, for whom would you be likely to vote?" Al Gore got 40 percent; Hillary got 38 percent; and 22 percent were not sure.
What's more, if you added Bill Bradley to the mix, Hillary as the only woman in the race would no doubt be a formidable candidate in the Democratic primaries. Indeed, Rasmussen's poll showed Hillary with an 11-point lead among female voters, who typically turn out in higher numbers in Democratic primaries.
Washington insiders joke that the president is enthusiastically supporting his wife's Senate ambitions because she would have to get an apartment in New York. But a presidential race for Hillary, from a certain perspective, might make more sense. After all, if a couple is going to split up and stop sharing quarters, shouldn't she keep the house?