New Hillary twist: She can’t make up her mind on State; Update: Yes, finally

posted at 3:00 pm on November 21, 2008 by Allahpundit
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All the more reason to demand her appointment. With the sole exception of the ‘Cuda, she’s the only inexhaustible supply of blogworthy drama on the political landscape. Four years of Hot Air content hang in the balance. She must accept.

And if you believe Politico and WaPo, that’s exactly what she’ll do. Why? For that, we turn to the NYT:

One friend said Mrs. Clinton decided late Wednesday to say no, reasoning that she would have more freedom in the Senate. By midday Thursday, the friend said, she was “back in the indecisive column again.” By the end of the day, another associate said she could accept by Friday…

[D]riving her consideration, friends said, is a sense of disenchantment with the Senate, where despite her stature she remains low in the ranks of seniority that governs the body. She was particularly upset, they said, at the reception she felt she received when she returned from the campaign after collecting 18 million votes and almost becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party.

“Her experience in the Senate with some of her colleagues has not been the easiest time for her,” said one longtime friend who insisted on anonymity in exchange for sharing Mrs. Clinton’s sentiments. “She’s still a very junior senator. She doesn’t have a committee. And she’s had some disappointing times with her colleagues.”

In particular, the friend said, Mrs. Clinton was upset when the leadership rejected the possibility of her heading a special new task force with a staff and a mandate to develop legislation expanding health care coverage.

Yeah, I think this is the grand hole in the conventional wisdom that the Senate has more to offer her than does carrying water for The One. Because she’s such an outsized national figure, we tend to assume that that translates into outsized influence legislatively. Tain’t so. If it was, they wouldn’t be straining to come up with symbolic honors for her that carry little real power. If she got to play quarterback on the health-care bill she’d probably stay, but Teddy’s decided he’s going to play quarterback. In which case, whom would you rather take a handoff from — Kennedy, as just one member of a larger team, or the president, to command the entire country’s foreign policy? In fact, I wonder if there’s not something deliberate going on in freezing her out from more influential Senate positions. All the same concerns about her overshadowing Obama or otherwise complicating his job in the cabinet are also true vis-a-vis Senators more senior to her. If you’re a committee chairman with her on the bench, why not stave her off and hope that it makes her more inclined to get vacuumed up into the cabinet? She’s Obama’s problem now, not Teddy’s.

The real question is what she does once she leaves State, which she’ll inevitably do before The One’s time in office ends. Run for governor of New York? Replace Billy Jeff as chairman of the Clinton Global Initiative? Accept formal investiture as feminist pope?

Update: The drama ends — for the time being. No shady Guardian scoop this time; the Times claims she’ll accept. Good luck, Barry.

“She’s ready,” said the confidant. Mrs. Clinton was reassured after talking again with Mr. Obama because their first meeting in Chicago last week “was so general,” the confidant said. The purpose of the follow-up talk, he added, was not to extract particular concessions but “just getting comfortable” with the idea of working together.

A second Clinton associate confirmed that her camp believes they have a done deal. Senior Obama advisers said Friday morning that the offer had not been formally accepted and no announcement will be made until after Thanksgiving. But they said they were convinced that the nascent alliance was now ready to be sealed.

What does “just getting comfortable” mean?

Blowback

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