The Senate's Battle Axe
Fund, John H.
D emocrats lost control of the U.S. Senate in November, but paradoxically Senator Hillary Clinton's star brightened as a result. As a freshman senator, Mrs. Clinton lacks seniority and other...
...In fact, Mr...
...Senator Frist agreed: "I think on the first day they wanted to try and test me...
...Clinton quickly assembled a group of Democratic senators at the back of the chamber...
...Majority Leader Frist had concluded a deal with his Democratic counterpart, Tom Daschle, that a bill to extend federal assistance to 750,000 unemployed Americans would pass without debate or amendments...
...Norquist thinks that while Hillary will be able to thrill the hearts of liberals in her new Senate leadership role, he agrees more with Dick Morris about her effect on the rest of the country...
...Clinton showed some steel...
...Her decision to become a spokesperson for the Democratic Party is misguided and will only lead to an increase in her negative ratings...
...But I think her goal is to become indispensable to her party and the obvious candidate in 2008, when no incumbent president will be running...
...Hillary herself realizes that other oft-cited polls that show her leading the 2004 Democratic field mainly reflect her high name-recognition...
...Throughout her career, when Hillary is silent she gains in popularity...
...They are not friends...
...They'll never be able to work together as cheerfully as we do...
...After a couple of exhausting hours, the Democrats had made their point and finally agreed to a vote on the original Clinton proposal...
...When she starts talking—as in the health care debate of 1994—she loses support," says former Clinton strategist Dick Morris...
...According to the New York Observer, she "talked about Grover Norquist having weekly meetings with other conservatives, coming up with talking points, and getting them up by [Sean] Hannity and [Bill] O'Reilly and others...
...Despite the success of her maiden outing as a member of the Senate's Democratic leadership, Mrs...
...Clinton nonetheless has her critics...
...Norquist responded...
...On the very first day that the Senate convened in January, Mrs...
...Then, with marching orders apparently in hand, the group moved down the aisles and took up battle stations...
...Clinton to be the most admired woman in America, although she was the first choice of only 7 percent of respondents (beating out Oprah Winfrey by one point...
...Last December she attended a meeting of Democratic activists on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in which she discussed the organizational activities of conservative strategist Grover Norquist...
...they are competitors for divvying up the asgets that the state organizes...
...Many Democrats are calling for Senator Clinton to run for president in 2004...
...Since she is only fifty-five years old, she can afford to bide her time, keep her pledge to New Yorkers to serve a full Senate term, and then run in 2008...
...She was almost admiring—she thinks that Democrats should do the same thing...
...A floor debate ensued on what everyone thought was a done deal, spotlighting Senator Frist's unfamiliarity with complex parliamentary procedure...
...I watched from the Senate gallery as Hillary quickly threw a monkey wrench into the plan, by standing up to offer an amendment that would broaden the bill to cover many more workers...
...Democrats respond that a recent Gallup poll showed Mrs...
...Our coalition doesn't want anything at anyone's expense...
...What she has in spades is intellect, a national reputation with both friends and foes, an enormous fundraising base, and the ability to drive Republicans— especially new Senate majority leader Bill Frist—crazy...
...Clinton is taking lessons from what she must regard as still the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that she once archly criticized during the Clinton impeachment drama...
...In the meantime, Mrs...
...Norquist says, "is a collection of competing parasites: the labor unions, the trial lawyers, the big-city political machines, the people who are locked into welfare dependency...
...The left," Mr...
...It's no wonder that after their defeat, Democrats made Senator Clinton head of their Steering Committee, which puts her in charge of overseeing the Democratic message...
...I could see her gesticulating and emphasizing her points, with her colleagues nodding...
...We'll find out who was right—Hillary or Grover—in the next few years...
...Everyone just wants to be left alone...
...Watching the competing strategies vie for the attention of the American people will be great fun...
...Other Democrats whom she had primed to act stood and called for a vote...
...GOP senator Jim Bunning voiced grudging admiration for the Democratic ploy: "Bill Frist learned a valuable lesson in his first day—there's no deal that's a sure deal...
...Clinton lacks seniority and other measures of clout that matter in the Senate...
...We are complimented that she would make that observation, but reasonably confident that the Left can't do what we do, because their coalition is structured differently than ours?' Mr...
Vol. 36 • January 2003 • No. 1
