In Meetings With Allies, Clinton Hones ’08 Strategy

[Herman Munster]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/washington/03cnd-clinton.html?hp&ex=1167886800&en=efef067c40560e2e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Mrs. Clinton, the New York Democrat, was described by participants as leaving little doubt that she plans to run, without saying so directly. Depending on her audience, she appears to be either seeking information to use in campaign strategy, pressing potential supporters to hold tight and wait for her to announce, or gauging how certain issues — in particular, her initial vote for the war in Iraq — might play. The sessions are the subject of much discussion in Democratic circles, and they seem designed in part to counter any impression that Mrs. Clinton is surrounded by an insular circle of longtime advisers and friends who are detached from many of the grassroots Democrats who have grown in influence since the last time a Clinton ran for president.

According to participants, Mrs. Clinton has pressed to find out everything from whether former Vice President Al Gore will run again (he is inclined not to, people tell her) to how much support remains for Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party’s 2004 candidate, among Democratic leaders (anemic, she has heard). Mrs. Clinton told Democrats that she viewed her two strongest potential Democratic opponents as Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina. They said that she viewed Mr. Obama as her biggest obstacle to the nomination, but that she believed the threat of his candidacy will diminish as voters learn how inexperienced he is in government and foreign affairs.

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Senator Clinton told one New Hampshire Democrat that if all things were equal, she would prefer to delay the formal start of her campaign until later this year and focus instead on notching accomplishments as a prominent member of the new Democratic majority in the Senate. At several meetings, Mrs. Clinton has wondered, with obvious exasperation, why her husband was able to delay making his presidential announcement in 1991 until October, while she is under increasing pressure to make hers earlier in the year, participants said. “I recommended that she didn’t need to jump in early, that I would like to see some progress in the Senate, and she said she felt the same way,” said the Democrat, William Shaheen, who was a senior New Hampshire aide to Mr. Gore in 2000 and Mr. Kerry in 2004. Some of her aides said that while she is likely to announce within the next few weeks that she is creating a presidential exploratory committee, a step that would allow her to start raising money, a formal announcement might take longer. And some of the advice she has heard has been to wait. “Senator Clinton was clear that she’d like to focus on the Senate, but sometimes events come into it, other people start beating the drum quicker, and you can lose key people if you wait,” Mr. Shaheen said.

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Mrs. Clinton has talked, both in person or by telephone, to influential Democrats in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, the states that will begin the nomination process with caucuses and primaries a year from now. She has pressed Democrats to find out what campaign staff her prospective opponents like Mr. Edwards have assembled in states like Iowa. And she asked precisely where she should go in places like Iowa and New Hampshire if she, as expected, does a round of trips there after forming a presidential exploratory committee. No detail has been too minor for Mrs. Clinton. She has asked Democrats from New Hampshire and Iowa about the concerns in certain regions and counties of their states, dwelling on energy issues, health care, education and the war in Iraq. She has asked about the influence of independent voters (they make up the biggest voting bloc in New Hampshire and can vote in the Democratic primary there). Mrs. Clinton has less experience with presidential politics in Iowa than in New Hampshire because in 1992, when her husband ran, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa was also seeking the presidential nomination, so the rest of the candidates steered clear of that state’s race.