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If there's a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, predicts Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, a moderate advocacy group, it won't be the usual skirmish between the liberals and moderates of the professional political class in Washington but one between the Washington insiders on one side and the rank-and-file activists spread out across the country on the other. "What's changed over the past two years is that activist Democrats believe that Republicans are venal people," says Rosenberg. These activists "are going to be very intolerant of Democrats in Washington who cooperate with the Republicans. There's going to be tremendous pressure to stand up and fight and not roll over and play dead."
If Rosenberg is right, it could mean that when it comes to partisan acrimony, Bush's first term will be remembered as a period of relative harmony compared with his second. In that kind of environment, anyone hoping to contend for leadership of the Democrats and the 2008 nomination will be under pressure to clash early and often with both Bush and the G.O.P.-controlled Congress. The result could be something very close to a four-year campaign for the presidency.
Already, potential candidates for 2008 are being handicapped. Kerry could argue that he deserves another chance, but not since they renominated Adlai Stevenson in 1956 have the Democrats thought--mistakenly, in Stevenson's case--that they could make a winner out of the previous election's runner-up. Early attention will be focused squarely on New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. "If she wants to run, she will completely dominate the field," predicts Podesta, who admits, as a veteran of the Clinton White House, that he may not be totally objective. "In terms of fund raising, charisma, ideas and positioning, she dominates." Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000, agrees. "There will be John Edwards' band of friends, but in this party, the Clintons have the juice," says Brazile. More than any other potential candidate, she adds, Senator Clinton transcends the party's ideological fault lines and the battle between its insiders and outsiders. "She's acceptable to everyone," Brazile says. "The moderate wing likes her; the liberals like her. There's no question, Hillary's the person people will focus on."
Some of the Clintons' closest advisers predict she will run. They also say her husband is, if anything, more enthusiastic about the idea than she is. The first hint of her intentions may come Nov. 8, when she speaks to the board of the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington think tank. But her candidacy is not guaranteed. Clinton could face a formidable opponent when she comes up for re-election to the Senate in two years: both Governor George Pataki and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani are said to be considering a challenge. A loss would effectively terminate Clinton's presidential prospects. But even if she were to win, such a campaign would be a mammoth distraction and a serious drain on resources she would need for a presidential run. "In the end, I think she beats Pataki or Giuliani, but it's two years of struggle," says Podesta.