Hillary Or Not Hillary

The way I see it, there are two leading candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination - Hillary and Not Hillary. I don't know who Not Hillary is, but we all know it won't be Mark Warner. The former governor of Virginia (no relation to John Warner, the state's senior senator) cited personal reasons, saying he wanted to have a normal life. Who could blame him - I've never considered the current White House occupant normal!

Warner's decision to sit this one out helps other candidates trying to be Not Hillary, but it could also help Hillary, who has benefited from losing a very formidable opponent. Curiously, though, other potential candidates - Evan Bayh, John Edwards, Bill Richardson - are from heavily Republican states, suggesting that Howard Dean's strategy to build the party in all fifty states (reported on at length recently in the New York Times Magazine) may be worthwhile, while Hillary represents one of the most Democratic states in the Union.

Whoever Not Hillary turns out to be, I hope he (she? highly implausible) makes it. In the past quarter century, Democrats have been on life support, having lost five out of the seven past presidential elections (after winning eight of the previous twelve), having lost the Senate and the House, and having lost control of the Supreme Court, and they're not doing all that much better at the state and local level. Nominating Hillary in 2008 will be a literal death blow to the party, which, I assure you, will not be around in 2012 as a result.