Hillary and Bill Clinton have already spent 12 years in the Little Rock governor's mansion. Would they consider taking up residence in another backwater state capital? And should they?
On Mar. 28, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter reported that Democratic insiders have begun buzzing about an alternate future for Hillary Clinton: running for governor of New York state in 2010. According to Alter, the candidate herself is open to the idea, although it reportedly horrifies her husband, who retains his singular focus on winning the White House.
Serving as a governor would have several obvious political benefits for Clinton. It could position her for a second presidential run in 2012, should Barack Obama become the Democratic nominee and lose to John McCain in November. A few years of executive experience would serve to further build Clinton's resume beyond her husband's administration. A governorship would also remove Clinton from the Senate, whose Democratic caucus seems less hospitable to her since key players such as Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd declared their loyalty to Team Obama.
But there's another, underappreciated reason why Hillary Clinton should consider running for governor: She'd probably be very good at the job. After all, the gradual decline of Clinton's presidential prospects does not change the fact that she is a singularly hard-working, policy-focused politician -- and someone whose skills and star power might be well-suited to shocking Albany's contentious political culture into submission.
Even before his administration collapsed in scandal, Eliot Spitzer, with his quick temper, aversion to compromise, and penchant for vengeance, proved ill-equipped to tame Albany's infighting and corruption. And while hopes were high for David Paterson, New York's first African American governor, his first month in office has been defined not by policy proposals but by a string of embarrassing personal revelations. Paterson has admitted to several affairs as well as to cocaine and marijuana use. He has helped at least one ex-girlfriend, a former Olympic track star, obtain a choice job. Unless Paterson is able to quickly change the tone of his media coverage and outline some practical policy goals for New York, he will risk losing all credibility and could very well choose, or be pressured into, not running for reelection.
Enter Hillary Clinton. She was re-elected to the Senate by 67 percent of the New York electorate in 2006, so it's hard to imagine any New York Republican, other than maybe Rudy Giuliani, who would enter the race on anything close to an even footing with her.
How would Clinton fare as governor? Like any New York executive, she'd have to learn to work productively with the state Senate majority leader and the speaker of the state Assembly, two of the "three men in a room," who, along with New York's governor (so far, always a man), make up the state's power troika. Joseph Bruno is the current Republican state Senate majority leader. Bruno's business consulting activities are under investigation by the FBI, and his travels were improperly monitored by the Spitzer administration. Sheldon Silver is the current Democratic Assembly speaker. Last week, Silver blocked New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan for Manhattan. Though Silver has championed universal pre-K and the revival of Ground Zero, the New York Daily News has coined the phrase "Shell's Kitchen" to describe the many policy proposals he has killed.
Between Bruno and Silver, there is no love lost. "The reason we have dysfunction in Albany is Speaker Shelly Silver," Bruno told New York magazine in March, before Spitzer's resignation. "That's why. He will not govern. His style is to do nothing, hold you hostage, make you grovel, then trade you for what he wants. He kills everything."
Silver replied, "Tell him that is governing."
There is evidence that Clinton could successfully mediate between these two stalwarts of New York politics, or whoever rises to take their place. In the U.S. Senate, Clinton has certainly shown an aptitude for managing conflict, forging friendships with even those Republican senators, such as Lindsay Graham, who were leaders in impeaching her husband. While Spitzer was known for treating political adversaries to spittle-showering temper tantrums, Clinton reaches across the Senate aisle at Wednesday morning evangelical Christian prayer breakfasts. As reported by Joshua Green in The Atlantic, that is where Clinton forged an unlikely alliance with uber-conservative Sen. Sam Brownback, with whom she worked on legislation to offer sanctuary in the United States to refugees fleeing sexual abuse, as well as a bill to investigate the effects of violent video games and television shows on children's development.
Clinton's combination of peace-making skills, fundraising prowess, and her megaphone to the media once inspired the Prospect's own Ezra Klein to urge her to pursue the position of Senate majority leader instead of running for president. But as a governor, Clinton would have the opportunity not only to utilize those talents, but also to put her recognized policy wonkery to work, crafting ambitious programs with greater latitude. She could use the expertise she gleaned from her 1993 universal health-care struggle to create what could be the most progressive state health-care system in the country. Granted, the depth of health-care reform available at the state level pales in comparison to what a president can enact working alongside Congress. But if the presidency proves out of reach for her, Clinton's personality and ambitions may be better suited to the role of executive than that of legislative helpmate.
On what other issues would Gov. Clinton lead? After last year's Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear made it almost impossible for workers to file pay discrimination complaints, Clinton introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would make it easier for women and minorities to bring class action lawsuits against discriminatory employers and require firms to keep detailed statistics correlating pay with gender, race, and national origin. Under committed leadership, New York could join the two states (Washington and Minnesota) that have already passed pay equity legislation. Thanks to the policy, Minnesota female public employees now earn 97 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts, compared to the national average of 75 cents.
Another pet cause for Clinton is early childhood education -- as a presidential candidate, she offers a more aggressive pre-K plan than Barack Obama. In Albany, she would be well-positioned to pick up where Spitzer left off in reforming early education. In 2006, he and the legislature -- Silver was a key ally -- increased pre-K funding by 50 percent, but still only half of New York 4-year-olds qualify for public schooling.
Some will say that Clinton's rocky campaign, marred by infighting and the dismissal of top aides, disproves the argument that she'd be a competent executive. But the two key mistakes of Clinton's campaign were her refusal, backed by ousted chief strategist Mark Penn, to apologize for her vote to authorize the Iraq War, and her failure to contest the caucus states. Both flaws are neutralized in a state-level campaign. Iraq simply won't be a major issue in a gubernatorial race, and Clinton's 2000 Senate run proved her to be a master at campaigning through upstate New York's highways and byways, which are populated by the same working-class white voters who propelled her to victory in Ohio and have made her the favorite in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary.
Clinton has appealed to such voters throughout this race by portraying herself as the hard worker to Obama's flashy orator. A Mar. 26 press release from her campaign boasted, "In the end, Sen. Obama's words cannot erase Hillary's 35-year record of action because when all is said and done, words aren't action. They are just words." Dealing with state budgets and small-town legislators isn't nearly as glamorous as press conferences in the Rose Garden. But if Clinton is serious about rolling up her sleeves and getting to work, maybe she'll consider running for governor.
