Mesmerized by the idea
Maybe everything in the world is about timing.
From "Game Changer" - a book about the 2008 Presidential race; quote below is about why Hillary Clinton didn't run in the 2004 Race. This "scene" occurs on the eve of the last "are you in or out" date? After seeing how unattractive the contenders were (Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, Dean)
One by one, Hillary polled the group, listening carefully to what each of them had to say. These were the people whose opinions meant the most to her. Solis Doyle and Williams were in favor, as they had been all along. Lieberman and Mills were down with the program, too. And so was Bill. He had no doubt that Hillary would make a better president than anyone who was running. Just as important, he was sure that she could win.
But Hillary discovered that there was one dissenter in the room. Chelsea believed that her mother had to finish her term, that she'd made a promise and had to keep it, that voters would be unforgiving if she didn't.
Try as she might to convince herself otherwise, Hillary thought her daughter was right. After months of weighing the pros and cons, gaming out the decision from every angle, she simply couldn't get past the pledge. All the artful answers in the world wouldn't satisfy her own conscience or drown out the bleating of the anti-Clinton chorus and their amen corner in the press that would greet her if she launched a last-minute campaign. Hillary could hear it now: ambitious bitch, there she goes again, dissembling, scheming, shimmying up the greasy pole with no regard for principle.
"I'd be crucified," she told Solis Doyle.
Clinton's decision to forego the 2004 race would prove fateful. It is impossible to know whether Hillary would have won either the Democratic nomination or the White House-although the strategists behind Bush's reelection considered her formidable in a way they never did Dean or Kerry. But her entry would have scrambled the Democratic race severely. By closing a door, she opened another, inadvertently setting off a chain reaction that would have enormous consequences for her deferred ambitions. The absence of Clinton in the race left the road clear for Kerry to stage his surprising resurgence. The stunning victory over Dean in Iowa. The landslide in New Hampshire. The knockout blow on Super Tuesday that sealed the nomination and put Kerry in a position to make a decision as unlikely as it was momentous: the tapping of an unknown Illinois state legislator to give the keynote address that summer at the Democratic National Convention.
Could Hillary have won in 2004? I don't know. But....it was pretty close for a while with Kerry/Edwards, so you have to believe that Hillary (running a good campaign, not the 2008 clusterfuck) would have been in the fight til election day and beyond.
Imagine it, Hillary wins in 2004 and Obama...Obama doesn't exist. Although I love him personally, and have a grudging and conflicted appreciation for him so far, I also know that he caught political lightning in a bottle - 2008 was the perfect time for him on all levels. Would 2012 have been his, as well? How would he fit in a Clinton/Kerry Democrat world?
Timing. If Hillary had run for Senate but not promised so earnestly six years, if she had been willing to take the big risk - against promise, against terror..etc etc.
It goes to show, ambition is just the sweet side of arrogance. And failing short of one dooms the other.
From "Game Changer" - a book about the 2008 Presidential race; quote below is about why Hillary Clinton didn't run in the 2004 Race. This "scene" occurs on the eve of the last "are you in or out" date? After seeing how unattractive the contenders were (Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, Dean)
One by one, Hillary polled the group, listening carefully to what each of them had to say. These were the people whose opinions meant the most to her. Solis Doyle and Williams were in favor, as they had been all along. Lieberman and Mills were down with the program, too. And so was Bill. He had no doubt that Hillary would make a better president than anyone who was running. Just as important, he was sure that she could win.
But Hillary discovered that there was one dissenter in the room. Chelsea believed that her mother had to finish her term, that she'd made a promise and had to keep it, that voters would be unforgiving if she didn't.
Try as she might to convince herself otherwise, Hillary thought her daughter was right. After months of weighing the pros and cons, gaming out the decision from every angle, she simply couldn't get past the pledge. All the artful answers in the world wouldn't satisfy her own conscience or drown out the bleating of the anti-Clinton chorus and their amen corner in the press that would greet her if she launched a last-minute campaign. Hillary could hear it now: ambitious bitch, there she goes again, dissembling, scheming, shimmying up the greasy pole with no regard for principle.
"I'd be crucified," she told Solis Doyle.
Clinton's decision to forego the 2004 race would prove fateful. It is impossible to know whether Hillary would have won either the Democratic nomination or the White House-although the strategists behind Bush's reelection considered her formidable in a way they never did Dean or Kerry. But her entry would have scrambled the Democratic race severely. By closing a door, she opened another, inadvertently setting off a chain reaction that would have enormous consequences for her deferred ambitions. The absence of Clinton in the race left the road clear for Kerry to stage his surprising resurgence. The stunning victory over Dean in Iowa. The landslide in New Hampshire. The knockout blow on Super Tuesday that sealed the nomination and put Kerry in a position to make a decision as unlikely as it was momentous: the tapping of an unknown Illinois state legislator to give the keynote address that summer at the Democratic National Convention.
Could Hillary have won in 2004? I don't know. But....it was pretty close for a while with Kerry/Edwards, so you have to believe that Hillary (running a good campaign, not the 2008 clusterfuck) would have been in the fight til election day and beyond.
Imagine it, Hillary wins in 2004 and Obama...Obama doesn't exist. Although I love him personally, and have a grudging and conflicted appreciation for him so far, I also know that he caught political lightning in a bottle - 2008 was the perfect time for him on all levels. Would 2012 have been his, as well? How would he fit in a Clinton/Kerry Democrat world?
Timing. If Hillary had run for Senate but not promised so earnestly six years, if she had been willing to take the big risk - against promise, against terror..etc etc.
It goes to show, ambition is just the sweet side of arrogance. And failing short of one dooms the other.