The Tricky Path Of The Pre-Presidential Candidate

by Joe Conason

Up for re-election after a successful first term, with overwhelming popular approval, the candidate is a prohibitive favorite to win again. Sporting a presidential name and a stunning capacity to attract money, the candidate can pull in a million dollars or more, simply by showing up for dinner anywhere in the country.

While the candidate insists that winning a second term is the only priority, the nation's political elites and pundits openly speculate that plans are being laid for a White House bid. Everywhere the candidate goes -- and the candidate goes everywhere, both to address the party faithful and raise funds -- reporters ask about the presidency. The next presidential election is still years away, but the candidate already leads all potential rivals in opinion polls and insider surveys.

Back home, the candidate's would-be opponents seek to transform those looming national ambitions into a negative campaign issue. They warn that running for president will mean only part-time attention to pressing local problems.

Who is this candidate? The description fits Hillary Rodham Clinton, the junior senator from New York and presumed Democratic presidential contender. Seven years ago, however, the same profile would have perfectly described George W. Bush, then running for his second term as governor of Texas -- and preparing to decide whether to run for president of the United States.

During Mr. Bush's 1998 re-election campaign, politicians and journalists correctly calculated that he was certain to begin running for president the following year. He was raising millions of dollars in places far from Austin and doing his best to deflect questions about the presidency.

To his credit, Mr. Bush never denied that he might seek national office. "The truth is, I don't know whether or not I'm going to run for the presidency, and won't know for quite a while," he said in May 1998. "That's just something Texas voters will have to factor into their decision." He made those comments six months before his landslide victory over a Democrat who tried to make an issue of his presidential prospects.

The issue of presidential potential as a distraction from present responsibilities arose when Jeanine Pirro, the district attorney in suburban Westchester County, announced her intention to seek the Republican Senate nomination against Mrs. Clinton. Fumbling her way through an uninspired speech, Mrs. Pirro mentioned few substantive disagreements with the incumbent. Instead, she boasted of the "broad blue stripes" that offset her Republican redness.

The would-be challenger's sharpest complaint is that Mrs. Clinton could conceivably run for president while serving in the Senate. According to Mrs. Pirro, in fact, that complaint is the foundation of her candidacy.

"I am running for the Senate because New York deserves a senator who will give her all to the people of New York for a full term -- full time -- and not miss votes to campaign in the 2008 presidential primaries," the district attorney explained in her announcement speech last week.

"You will know where my opponent and I disagree and where we agree," Mrs. Pirro went on. "But mostly," she concluded, "I'm the one candidate running for senator from New York who really wants to be senator from New York."

There are many flaws in this argument, but let's begin with the most obvious. Somehow it didn't occur to Mrs. Pirro that if the people of New York deserve a full-time senator, then the good citizens of Westchester also deserve a full-time district attorney, and she should resign because her attention will be consumed by a statewide campaign for the next 16 months.

Yet even if Mrs. Pirro does resign, the notion that anyone contemplating a presidential candidacy shouldn't stand for re-election to the Senate or statehouse is still stupid and harmful. Pursued to its logical conclusion, this stricture would eliminate many of the most able and talented politicians from public service.

Nobody in Kansas made an issue of Sen. Robert Dole's ambitions when he sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1980 and 1988. (He did resign his Senate seat, in 1996, when he was the party's nominee.) Should John McCain, the conscience of the Republican Party, have renounced his easy re-election last year because he may run for president again in 2008? Nobody in Arizona mentioned the idea, including his plucky Democratic opponent.

If White House political guru Karl Rove encouraged Mrs. Pirro to run, as many observers believe, then perhaps he should devise a more persuasive -- and less sophomoric -- rationale for her campaign.