The affable RNC chairman gamely insisted that he is just delighted by the prospect of a Clinton candidacy next year, because Hillary will draw money and attention away from presumed presidential candidate Al Gore. Nicholson probably takes comfort from gossip about unnamed advisors to the vice president who supposedly are dismayed by the Hillary boomlet in New York for the same reasons he articulated. And it may be true that some in the Gore camp, stung by their man's recent difficulties, are looking around for someone else to blame. The president's well-meaning but foolish telephone call to the New York Times about Gore's style problem surely didn't help, either.

But Nicholson's Hillary-hurts-Al thesis quickly starts to disintegrate under informed scrutiny.

Absent Hillary's entry in the race, the New York Senate seat was going to be the Republicans' for the taking. But with her in, the seat would be heavily contested, and hard for the GOP to win. Instead of the prospect of a Democratic Senate candidate struggling to raise money, her party would field a celebrity who can easily bring millions of dollars into the country's most expensive media market. The presence of a national figure who evokes deep loyalty in the Democratic base on the ballot in a major state will bring out additional thousands of blacks, Latinos and women on Election Day 2000.

If Jim Nicholson is depending on scandal fatigue or general disillusionment with the Clintons to turn voters off, he must be confusing New York with his home state of Colorado. The president won New York state by wide margins in 1992 and 1996. His approval ratings in the state (not just in the liberal Democratic city) have consistently ranged 10 to 20 points above the national average, as have the first lady's. When Charles Schumer defeated Alfonse D'Amato last year, despite the incumbent Republican's overwhelming financial advantage, he did so by identifying himself closely with both Clintons. The only woman who spent more time on the stump with Schumer than Hillary Clinton was his wife.

There are potential pitfalls to be navigated by Hillary and her advisors if and when she does declare her candidacy, although few of them have anything to do with the New York venue. She would be the first first lady to run for elected office, a status that would carry special burdens. What will Hillary do when the administration proposes policies that are unpopular with the New York electorate? What will she say if she doesn't agree with a position taken by her husband or his chosen successor? What will protect her from the vagaries of a sudden economic downturn or an unsuccessful conclusion to the war in Kosovo?

Besides carrying all the baggage of being President Clinton's wife, she will also be toting a carpetbag. Most New Yorkers already have processed the fact that she is from out-of-town, and it may not matter much next year. But that could change if she blurts out something that suddenly reminds New Yorkers of the cultural and political distance between Arkansas and Albany.

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