WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- There is little doubt Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., wants to be president of the United States. The question is not "Will she run?" so much as it is the timing.
A number of otherwise astute political observers still expect her to become a candidate because of the perceived weakness of the field of Democrats now running. Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor currently considered the party's front-runner, is believed by many Democrats to be too liberal to win.
The specter of Dean as the nominee sends chills down the spines of party solons who fear an outcome worse than what the party experienced when former Sen. George McGovern, from South Dakota, headed the ticket in 1972. None of the other candidates, with the possible exception of former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is given much of a chance of winning the nomination or beating Bush.
Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., has little of substance to show after four terms in the Senate. He has, through his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, an enormous personal fortune at his disposal but his campaign has grown moribund and is in disarray. He fired his campaign manager, never a good sign, and several other senior staffers turned in their resignations.
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., a millionaire trial lawyer, has a lot of money to spend. Being from the South, he says he has the stuff needed to again pick the GOP's electoral lock on the region -- just as Bill Clinton did in 1992 and 1996. But Edwards is not ready for prime time. He does not appear presidential and has gained little traction with the primary electorate.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., gained some stature as Al Gore's running mate in 2000 but has little to show for his current effort. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Ambassador Carol Mosley Braun are, to be quite honest, distractions from the serious business of running for president.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark has failed to live up to the expectations raised as the media was drafting him to run. His star seems to be falling as rapidly as it rose.
If the polls are reliable, many Democrats are actually itching for an alternative to the nine Democrats currently in the race. That alternative, the surveys say, is the former first lady.
Every time she comes anywhere near the presidential race it sets off a flurry of speculation that she has changed her mind, that her entry into the race is "imminent." Her trip to Iowa this past weekend to emcee an event where most of the Democrats running for president were in attendance sparked new conjecture that she was preparing to announce her candidacy.
That is likely just the way she wants it. She is teasing the party, dangling the prospect of her candidacy before them like red meat hung on a string over a German shepherd but without any intention of sealing the deal.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is not running for president in 2004. The risks are too high. A 2008 race makes a lot more sense.
It is almost always easier to win an open seat -- even when it is the presidency -- then it is to defeat even a marginally popular incumbent.
One by one, the Democrats are losing their issues. Campaign finance reform is now the law. The economy has rebounded, even last month's unemployment figures showed a slight improvement. Consumer confidence is rising while inflation remains low. Bush can be beaten -- any incumbent can -- but the cards are starting to stack up against it.
Nevertheless, Clinton is continuing to dangle the prospect of her candidacy in front of the voters because she wants them to want her. She may yet reverse course and enter the race, but only if Bush looks headed for certain defeat, something that looks increasingly unlikely.
What Clinton and those who stand behind her really want is for party activists and solons to wake up the morning after the November 2004 election, look at the wreck that was once an enduring national majority party and say to themselves, "If only we had nominated Hillary -- all of this could have been avoided."
Such a thing has happened before. In 1976 Gerald R. Ford narrowly won re-nomination at the Republican convention in Kansas City, Mo., but most of the delegates left the arena knowing they had picked the wrong man. The man he defeated was Ronald Reagan, who electrified the delegates with his extemporaneous remarks after Ford was nominated.
A little more than four years later, Reagan was president of the United States.
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(The Peter Principles is a regular column on politics, culture and the media by Peter Roff, UPI political analyst and 20-year veteran of the Washington scene.)
