The defeat of John Kerry could bring a silver lining for one Democratic presidential hopeful: Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose chances of reoccupying the White House as chief executive looked better this week than ever before.
In four years’ time the Democrats and the Republicans will be presenting new candidates to US voters.
It was widely agreed among Democratic insiders that Kerry’s defeat means that Clinton, the 57-year-old New York senator, is now the leading figure to challenge the Republicans in 2008.
Had Kerry won, he would almost certainly have run again in 2008. By the time Clinton’s next chance came around, in 2012, she would have been 65, and probably perceived as too old.
Party figures would not speculate about the former first lady’s chances, and Clinton’s official line has long been that she hoped for a Kerry win. ”That would be great with me,” she said soon after the Democratic convention in Boston this year. ”I want a Democratic White House for as long as we can have one.”
But the speculation ”starts as soon as Bush is declared a winner”, the independent pollster Lee Miringoff predicted. The most extraordinary scenario would pit Clinton against Jeb Bush, though the Florida governor last month ruled out a run for the presidency. ”I’m not going to run for president in 2008,” Bush told ABC television. ”That’s not my interest. I’m governor of this state. It’s the best job in the world.”
The identity of a possible Republican candidate in 2008 remains a matter of pure speculation. But two names have repeatedly featured amid the rumour-mongering: former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Senator John McCain of Arizona.
The California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has made his presidential ambitions clear — but that would require a constitutional amendment to lift the ban on foreign-born Americans holding the office.
One name already being touted as a possible Clinton running-mate is Barack Obama, the charismatic 43-year-old, of Kenyan lineage, who will become the only serving black senator, and only the third in 150 years, after an easy win in Illinois on Tuesday night. — Â