Hillary says no to run with Kerry

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday said she will turn down the vice presidential candidate slot if it’s offered to her by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

Mrs. Clinton was asked in an NBC “Today” show interview what she would do if Mr. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, asks her to be his running mate.

“Well, I don’t think that will happen,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in the interview, taped earlier this week and aired yesterday. “I’ve made it clear I don’t want that to happen, and that my answer will be no if it does happen. I’m not … I’m not prepared to do that.”

Political strategists had varying opinions of what her remarks mean.

“People are looking for hidden motives every time she opens her mouth,” complained Democratic analyst Donna Brazile, who said the remarks are consistent with Mrs. Clinton’s stated goal of running for another Senate term. “[T]hat’s where she’s going to keep her focus,” Ms. Brazile said.

Others said Mrs. Clinton, who was elected in 2000 as the junior senator from New York, has her sights set on the presidency, and her remarks yesterday back that up.

“My sense is that she doesn’t like to play second fiddle to anyone and you’re seeing that in this decision,” said Republican strategist David Winston. “She’s a pretty ambitious, focused person. I’m not sure that vice president is what she views as her goal.”

Mr. Winston said he assumes Mrs. Clinton, “would identify the best situation for her [to run for president] is an open-seat presidency, and therefore she’s looking at 2008.” Under this scenario, Mr. Kerry would lose this year’s election and Mr. Bush would be leaving a two-term presidency in 2008, so there’d be two new candidates vying for the office — a more favorable environment for a challenger than facing a sitting president, he said.

“I’m not implying that she wants Kerry to lose … but in terms of the most favorable for her, that’s the most favorable,” he said.

Mr. Winston said turning down an opportunity to be vice president means Mrs. Clinton runs the risk Mr. Kerry will win, thereby complicating her potential plans to seek the presidency in 2008. On the other hand, if she were to be Mr. Kerry’s running mate this year and they lose, that also could hurt such plans, he said.

Democrats strongly dismissed all this speculation. Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, said it’s “far-fetched and silly” to say Mrs. Clinton’s statements on the “Today” show indicate some “grand strategy” of a presidential run in 2008.

“If she was strategizing about how to be the [presidential] nominee for the future, she should do everything she could to be vice president,” he said. He said a vice presidential slot is a good jumping-off point for a presidential run, plus keeping her name in the mix as a potential vice president would give her much-coveted national attention over the next months.