Hillary for Vice-President?

The latest slate.com assessment of Senator Kerry's potential running mates has a short section on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. The article seems skeptical that she would even get the vice-presidential nomination for 2004 and I personally agree. I can think of a number of reasons why she'll try to hang onto her Senate seat for as long as possible:

• Incumbancy: Everyone knows that politically connected incumbants are the toughest opponents to defeat in an election. Hillary Clinton is as politically connected as they get, and with a Senate seat in a reliably Democratic state, the odds of her losing a bid for re-election are practically zero. Would running for president force her to resign from the Senate? Would she want to take the risk of losing two elections instead of one and being stuck out of office forever?
  


• Sexism: Whether or not America is still a sexist nation for the most part, or whether or not you even believe it is, you still have to admit the possibility that a woman running for president is going to end up losing votes because of her sex. I wouldn't call this a determinative factor in her decisions, but it would be a complication that might make the risks loom larger.
  


• The "sleaze factor": Just think about all of things the Clinton's have done that we haven't found out about yet, and which aren't going to go public unless she jumps into presidential politics again. A cozy Senate seat might seem very reassuring if you were one step ahead of an indictment when you were running for it.
  


• Cost/Benefit analysis: Presumably being a Senator allows one to pretend at being President without a lot of the nagging responsibilities. In other words, Hillary might not be President, but she already plays one on TV.
  

Personally, given the average Senator's addiction to television exposure, I believe that Hillary is most likely to be running for president of CBS in 2008.

On the other hand, I'd vote for Hillary Clinton for President in a minute if it meant voting against the Christian secession movement. Let's give her a little credit: she is at least loyal to a vision of what she thinks America should be.