The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

The fact that I can mention simply Hillary without the Rodham or even the Clinton in my mind says that she is definitely going to run for president in 2008.

The first stepping stone for her presidential run would be to win re-election of her New York Senate seat. If and when she does that she can run in '08 without fear of having to lose her seat if she loses because she will be in the midst of her Senate service.

There are Republicans on New York who are reported to be starting at least two "Stop Hillary Now" campaigns looking to raise money from conservative voters to keep her from getting re-elected. That's some ill shiznit right there. Isn't there a better name for a campaign like that? When you call it "Stop Hillary Now" I would bet you could turn some people off from it.

Anyhow, Hillary has managed to make a lot of friends in the state of New York. She's high profile and she's managed to fight for the state's best interests (recently defending a deal for a New York based aircraft company to manufacture helicopters and such for the military, to the dismay of Connecticut, where the company's competition is). New York City dwellers, largely Democrats, would be hard pressed to find a better candidate who's willing to run. The real surprise is that she's pretty popular with upstate voters as well. She has addressed their concerns too, whatever they are, and they like her.

I think the hardest part about Hillary running for president would be that the public would be essentially unable to separate the fact that she either is or isn't the best choice for the job with the fact that she's a woman. Many people would vote for her simply because she is a woman and many would *not* vote for her solely because of her female status. Even if 80% of the populous could vote without gender bias (either positive or negative), the remaining 20% would have a huge effect on the outcome.

I'm interested to see how this whole thing pans out. I'd love to see a legitimate campaign from Hillary. She's undoubtedly one of the smartest potential candidates, whether that would translate into her being a quality candidate and, more importantly, a good president remains to be seen.