The Examiner’s Bill Sammon raised an idea that hadn’t occurred to me: “If Hillary Rodham Clinton wins the presidency, some top Democrats would like to see her husband, former President Bill Clinton, appointed to serve out Hillary’s unexpired Senate term.”
Such a scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility now that the governor’s mansion in New York is occupied by a Democrat, Eliot Spitzer, who succeeded Republican Gov. George Pataki last month. If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, Spitzer would likely appoint a fellow Democrat to take over her Senate seat.
So far, speculation about potential successors has focused on New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose father once held the same Senate seat.
But Spitzer could just as easily appoint Bill Clinton, who, under New York law, would fill his wife’s Senate seat through 2010. A special election would then be held, and the winner would serve the final two years of her term, which expires in 2012.
Sammon quotes all kinds of observers (some neutral, some not) talking up the idea. Harold Ickes, who was once a top White House aide to Bill Clinton, said, “As a senator, he’d be a knockout. He knows issues, he loves public policy and he’s a good politician.”
Paul Begala, another former aide to the president, said, “President Clinton would excel in the Senate…. Why not? He excelled as attorney general and governor of Arkansas, he excelled as president and he’s been a model of the modern Senate spouse.”
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, agreed. “Clinton is a natural for the Senate,” Sabato said. “He loves to talk and schmooze. He could be a great vote-organizer. Majority Leader Clinton?”
I suspect most of this is just a fun thought experiment. That’s for the best — it’s never going to happen.
For one thing, as much as I revere the Senate, it would obviously be a step down. Sammon notes that John Quincy Adams had a long career in the House after his presidency, and Andrew Johnson served briefly in the Senate after a stint in the White House. But as precedents go, that’s not saying much. The modern presidency is the highest office on earth; serving as but one of 100 senators would be regressing.
Even more importantly, Bill Clinton just doesn’t have time. I don’t doubt that he’d excel in the job, but to serve in the Senate, the former president would have to give up doing all of the things he seems to really enjoy doing, namely overseeing the Clinton Global Initiative, traveling around, giving speeches, raising money for worthy causes … basically doing his part to try and improve the world.
I’m reminded of this terrific piece from August 2005 on Clinton’s ongoing role as an international leader.
Five years after his presidency, Clinton still thinks like a world leader. In some ways, it’s more complicated: He thinks like the leader of the world. While there’s no official means to be president of the planet, other than as U.N. secretary-general — a prospect constantly floated by Clinton supporters, though it’s practically impossible — he certainly seems to be trying hard to invent one. On September 15, the former president will be hosting the grandly titled Clinton Global Initiative, a conference timed to coincide with the World Summit at the U.N. The guest list features an impressive and eccentric mix of moguls, heads of state, and problem-solvers — from Sonia Gandhi to George Soros to Rupert Murdoch — who, after three days of panel-going and furious rubber-chicken consumption, are expected to sign pledges to do something about bettering the world. […]
For the former president, it’s finally a chance to press forward, to shore up his legacy — to throw an inaugural ball, really, for his third term…. No longer. Clinton, the man people accused of trying to be everything to everyone, can now embrace just that role, recasting himself in purely global terms. Since leaving the White House, he has traveled to 67 countries. On this African sweep, he manages to squeeze in six in seven days. “I think there are three people who are universal, whose prestige truly extends way over borders,” says Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist and author of The Mystery of Capital (and a key participant in the CGI). “There’s Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, and Clinton. The problem with Kofi is that he leads the world’s biggest bureaucracy. And Mandela is basically an African. He’s never had something to say about Asia. He’s never said, ‘I like mambo.’ Strangely, the only one who does this is Clinton, and he doesn’t even speak a foreign language.”
He pauses. “I mean, say Jacques Chirac retires,” says De Soto. “He can’t do the Chirac Global Initiative.”
Would Clinton give all of this up to serve in the Senate? It’s doubtful. The bigger question, it seems to me, is this: how would the former president try to pursue his global agenda while serving as the First Husband?