Result may be key for Hillary Clinton
NEW YORK -- The outcome of yesterday's presidential election could determine whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will have a chance to return her family to the White House.
A victory by President Bush could establish New York's junior senator as the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president. A win by Democrat John F. Kerry could put off a run for the White House by the former first lady for at least eight years, and maybe forever, pollsters and strategists said.
''The speculation starts as soon as Bush is declared a winner, and not at all if Kerry is," said independent pollster Lee Miringoff, head of Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion.
New York's voters are split on a Clinton run for the White House. She continues to evoke strong feelings -- positive and negative -- the way she did during her 2000 Senate campaign.
Richard Stager, a retired machinist from Fayetteville, said he would support a Clinton run for president.
''It's time we had a woman president," the 73-year-old said after voting for Bush yesterday. ''God only knows the men are running this country into the ground."
Bob Gibson, a 57-year-old retiree from New York City, reacted strongly to the suggestion of another Clinton presidency. Gibson is a Democrat who voted for Bush.
''I can't stand Hillary," he said. ''She reminds me of my ex-wife; what a phony."
Clinton has said she would be happy if Kerry won, served two terms, and handed off to Senator John Edwards, the vice presidential nominee, for two more terms.
''That would be great with me," she said shortly after the Democratic National Convention. ''I want a Democratic White House for as long as we can have one."
''If Kerry wins, Hillary loses," declared Republican operative Nelson Warfield. ''Do the math. She's fresh and 57 today. After Kerry runs for reelection [in 2008], she's 65 and old news."
But one top Clinton adviser, Harold Ickes, said yesterday that two terms for Kerry was ''not a show-stopper" if the former first lady later decides she wants to run for the White House.
Ickes said he did not know if Clinton wanted to do that.
''There is a myth abroad that the Clintons really didn't want Kerry to win," Ickes said. ''Nothing could be further from the truth. . . . From the beginning they have wanted a Democratic president."
But a Bush win does mean ''the Democrats will be in somewhat of a disarray. She's the most logical person to pick up the pieces," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant who worked on President Clinton's 1996 reelection effort. ''She has a national organization, a national fund-raising base, and she has the former president as her greatest ally." 