Chapter One
Setting the Stage
“I, Hillary Rodham Clinton, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully
execute the office of president of the United States and will, to the
best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of
the United States, so help me God.”
On January 20, 2009, at precisely noon, the world will witness the
inauguration of the forty-fourth president of the United States. As the
chief justice administers the oath of office on the flag-draped podium in
front of the U.S. Capitol, the first woman president, Hillary Rodham
Clinton, will be sworn into office. By her side, smiling broadly and
holding the family Bible, will be her chief strategist, husband, and
copresident, William Jefferson Clinton.
If the thought of another Clinton presidency excites you, then the future
indeed looks bright. Because, as of this moment, there is no doubt that
Hillary Clinton is on a virtually uncontested trajectory to win the
Democratic nomination and, very likely, the 2008 presidential election.
She has no serious opposition in her party. More important, a majority of
all American voters – 52 percent – now supports her candidacy.
The order of presidential succession from 1992 through 2008, in other
words, may well become Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton.
But if the very thought of four – or perhaps even eight – more years of
the Clintons and their predictable liberal policies alarms you; if you see
through the new Hillary brand – that easygoing, smiling moderate; if you
remember what a partisan, ethically challenged, left-wing ideologue she
has always been, is now, and will always be, then you can see what the
future holds.
That’s exactly the kind of president Hillary Clinton would be.
But her victory is not inevitable. There is one, and only one, figure in
America who can stop Hillary Clinton: Secretary of State Condoleezza
“Condi” Rice. Among all of the possible Republican candidates for
president, Condi alone could win the nomination, defeat Hillary, and
derail a third Clinton administration.
Condoleezza Rice, in fact, poses a mortal threat to Hillary’s success.
With her broad-based appeal to voters outside the traditional Republican
base, Condi has the potential to cause enough major defections from the
Democratic Party to create serious erosion among Hillary’s core voters.
She attracts the same female, African American, and Hispanic voters who
embrace Hillary, while still maintaining the support of conventional
Republicans.
This is a race Condi can win.
And Hillary cannot offset these losses of reliable Democratic
constituencies with other voting blocs. White men don’t like her. That
won’t change. And there is nowhere else for her to pick up support. It ‘s
simple: With Condi in the race, Hillary can’t win.
The stakes are high. In 2008, no ordinary white male Republican candidate
will do. Forget Bill Frist, George Allen, and George Pataki. Hillary would
easily beat any of them. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain? Either of them
could probably win, but neither will ever be nominated by the Republican
Party. These two are too liberal, too maverick, to win the party’s
support; their positions are too threatening to attract the Republican
base. Jeb Bush? Too many Bushes in a row make a hedge. He’s not going
anywhere. And Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger can’t run. In the next
election, none of the usual suspects can stop Hillary. Without Condi as
her opponent, Hillary Clinton will effortlessly lead the Democratic Party
back into the White House in 2008.
There is, perhaps, an inevitability to the clash: Two highly accomplished
women, partisans of opposite parties, media superstars, and
quintessentially twenty-first-century female leaders, have risen to the
top of American politics. Each is an icon to her supporters and admirers.
Two groundbreakers, two pioneers. Indeed, two of the most powerful women
on the planet: Forbes magazine recently ranked Condi as number one and
Hillary as number twenty-six in its 2005 list of the most powerful women
in the world.
As Hillary and Condi emerge as their party’s charismatic heroines, they
seem fated to meet on the grand stage of presidential politics. These two
forces, two vectors, two women, and two careers may be destined to collide
on the ultimate field of political battle. Two firsts in history. But only
one will become president.
The year 2008 could, at last, be the year of the woman – indeed, the year
of two women. Suddenly, the timing is right. Eighty-five years after the
Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, the planets seem
suddenly aligned to challenge history. American voters are surprisingly
ready for a woman in the White House. Public opinion is rapidly settling
into a consensus that a woman could actually be elected president in the
next election. For the first time in our history, a majority of voters say
they would support a woman for president. In a May 2005 USA
Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, an amazing 70 percent of the respondents indicated
that they “would be likely to vote for an unspecified woman for president
in 2008.”
What a revolutionary shift in thinking! No major American political party
has ever nominated a woman for president. And only one woman has run for
vice president – Democratic Party nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. But
now there are two star-crossed, qualified, and visible women who may be
presidential contenders in 2008. And the voters like them both: 53
percent of those questioned in the May 2005 survey had a favorable opinion
of Hillary Clinton, while 42 percent rated her negatively. Condoleezza
Rice fared much better: 59 percent liked her and only 27 percent didn’t.
Hillary Clinton has always wanted to be the first woman president of the
United States. Shortly after her husband’s election in 1992, the couple’s
closest advisers openly discussed plans for her eventual succession after
Bill’s second term. Of course, things didn’t turn out quite that way;
Hillary has had to wait a bit. But her election to the Senate in 2000 gave
her the national platform she needed to launch her new image – the
“Hillary Brand,” as we called it in Rewriting History – and begin her
long march back to the White House.
(Continues…)
Regan Books
ISBN: 0-06-083913-9
Excerpted from Condi vs. Hillary
by Dick Morris Eileen McGann Excerpted by permission.
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