-Caveat Lector- from http://www.phillynews.com/daily_news/99/Jan/22/national/hill22.htm Is Hillary in a New York State of mind? by William Bunch Daily News Staff Writer Will the moving vans pull up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue some fall day in 2000, destined for a one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side with a view of the park? Does she have more political cojones than New York City's ever-cranky, tough-on-criminals-and-squeegie-men mayor, Rudy Giuliani? Or, in the end, will 200-point headlines in the New York Post doom Hillary Rodham Clinton? It's America's hottest political rumor of 1999: That not long after her husband is -- presumedly -- cleared in his impeachment trial, the first lady will board the Metroliner for New York State, to run for the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It seemed far-fetched when New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli first let the idea slip out a couple of weeks ago. But fawning talk from Democratic Party leaders in New York and a surprisingly weak denial from Clinton's press office have fueled the rumors. So did the surprising early withdrawals of two potential strong rivals, U.S. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo and state Comptroller Carl McCall, New York's highest-ranking black official. Will it really happen? Cindy Adams, the New York Post gossip columnist who's been known to lunch with the first lady on occasion, this week quoted a reliable source, a major political fund-raiser, as "99.9 percent certain" that she will jump into the race. But one of the Beltway's top pundits, political scientist and CNN commentator William Schneider, is dubious. "Does she really want to stay in Washington?" asked Schneider, referring to the nightmare of prosecutor Kenneth Starr's seemingly endless investigations of her and her husband and the president's impeachment. "Does she really want to be part of the Senate? After eight years of this, she'll decide that enough is enough." Still, Schneider and others say they can understand why Hillary Clinton doesn't want to spike the rumor just yet -- because it encourages talk of the politically popular first lady as an independent, ideas-oriented leader, and not as a victimized wife. "She's probably flattered to some degree," agreed Neil Oxman, the Philadelphia-based Democratic political consultant. "But I don't think it's something that's going to happen." Oxman agreed with what some of the first lady's close friends were saying anonymously last week: That while her future probably is in public life, she would be much happier and better suited to serve in a less partisan post, as a college president or ambassador to the United Nations. "She'd be a great U.N. ambassador, like Eleanor Roosevelt and the work that she did for the United Nations," Oxman said. Clinton's spokeswoman said only that she "has no plans to run for elective office" -- a statement many interpreted as a non-denial denial. Some have also suggested that the first lady might someday run for the Senate from Illinois, the state where she was born and raised, or from California, another state where she and her husband have proved popular. But the political planets will never line up again like they have in New York in 2000 -- the state's first Senate race without an incumbent since the 1950s. Most states have strict residency requirements for candidates and, more importantly, political taboos against outside candidates (the latter are instantly labeled "carpetbaggers"). But not New York. The law says candidates need only rent an apartment in the state by Election Day. Indeed, the very slot that four-term incumbent Moynihan is sacrificing in 2000 has a long history of successful candidates with only the loosest of ties to the Empire State. The tradition started in 1964 when Robert Kennedy -- long registered in his native Massachusetts -- ousted a Republican incumbent, at a time when the nation was still awash in grief for his brother John F. Kennedy, assassinated 12 months earlier. In 1970, after Robert Kennedy himself was slain, the seat was won by conservative James Buckley -- the brother of right-wing columnist William F. Buckley and a Connecticut resident before the election. While Moynihan, who defeated Buckley in 1976, was a native of Manhattan's Hells Kitchen, he had lived most of his adult life away, as a Harvard professor and Washington bureaucrat. James Hilty, the Temple University professor who recently penned a biography of Robert Kennedy, "Brother Protector," noted that despite the Kennedy charisma, RFK won New York narrowly in 1964. "Hillary Clinton -- I don't know if she has the same sort of magnetism," Hilty said. Most experts agree that in the unlikely event that Hillary Clinton did decide to run, she'd face a much larger obstacle than residency. That would be New York's tough-on-crime and popular mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. Forced to leave office by the end of 2001 by a new term-limits law, and with Republican governor George Pataki unlikely to vacate Albany anytime soon, Giuliani is rated by many experts a likely 2000 GOP Senate candidate. Giuliani could combine his popularity in the city, normally a Democratic bastion, with traditional GOP strength in the suburbs and mostly rural upstate. What's more, Hillary Clinton wouldn't even be guaranteed the Democratic nomination. Maurice Carroll, the longtime New York City political journalist who now runs polling for Quinnipiac College, noted that the three native New Yorkers getting the most hype are three congresswomen. Nevertheless, Carroll -- who is hoping to poll the first lady's popularity in New York later this year -- thinks she would be a formidable candidate, in part because of her husband's appeal. "Bill Clinton's job performance is rated very high in New York, and it hasn't gone down," Carroll said. "If she chose to run, it would be fantastic -- but in no way are we depending or counting on it," said Matthew Hiltzik, the spokesman for the New York State Democratic Party. But the biggest reason the rumor has inspired so much speculation is that it would require Hillary Clinton to foresake the White House months before her husband's term is slated to finish -- assuming he isn't convicted. Bill Clinton's long history of philandering, culminating in the Monica Lewinsky affair while the couple was in the White House, has not surprisingly caused many people to think Hillary Clinton will want to divorce her husband at the first expedient opportunity. That theory, however, contradicts the public tendency to Hillary Clinton to stand with her husband during his darkest hours. "The whole thing is just filled with awkwardness," said Schneider, in seeking to throw some cold water on the rumor. At the same time, Schneider says he understands why the story is flourishing. "It means people are taking her seriously," he said. "She's got an image right now that isn't the image she wants ... She does not want to be the poster child for the scorned wife." Send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ©1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. ================================= Robert F. Tatman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Remove "nospam" from the address to reply. NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. 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