Reeves: Hillary Will Decide Presidential Plans Within Days

Sen. Hillary Clinton is about to decide her presidential plans, says columnist and author Richard Reeves.

The race for the Democrats' 2004 presidential nomination "has changed totally in the past few weeks," Reeves wrote Tuesday. "At the beginning of the summer, Hillary could comfortably deny having national presidential ambitions because the comfortable conventional wisdom was that it didn't really matter who the Democratic candidate would be, because President Bush had a lock on re-election. (I'm sure that the thought has never crossed her mind that it would be better for her if Bush won in 2004, leaving her a clear field in 2008.)

"But now! With Bush looking more vulnerable because there are not enough jobs at home and not enough peace abroad, Sen. Clinton has to check some numbers. If a Democrat, say Kerry, defeats Bush next November and then runs for re-election in 2008, then her next chance to run would probably be in 2012, when she will be 65 years old. And who knows what the world will look like then?" Or what Hillary will look like.

Reeves says that "Hillary and her advisers, including her husband the ex-president, her money men and pollsters, will meet shortly after Labor Day - Sept. 6, I hear - to discuss whether or not she should go for it. It is a decision that has to be made earlier rather than later because of November and December filing deadlines for the early primary elections that will almost certainly (and very quickly) identify the 2004 Democratic nominee.

"The contest, again almost certainly, will be over by March 2 at the latest, and possibly as early as the end of January. California, New York, Texas, Ohio and eight smaller states will hold primary elections on Super-Super Tuesday that second day of March. There is even a chance that if the same candidate, say Kerry, could win the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 19 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 27, he could win early enough to cut off the financial and journalistic oxygen of other Democratic runners. If Hillary decides to do it - you get to be president only by running for it - she will have to meet filing deadlines by announcing her candidacy before the end of this year."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

2004 Elections
Sen. Hillary Clinton

Editor's note:
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