Here’s two new arguments for the Hillary-watchers:

    The biggest advantage Hillary, or any Democrat, will have in 2008: Let's look at U.S. presidents since 1952: Eight years of Republican rule (Eisenhower) followed by eight years of Democratic rule (Kennedy, Johnson). Then eight years of Republican rule (Nixon, Ford). Then four years of Democratic rule (Carter). Then twelve years of Republicans (Reagan, Bush) followed by eight years of Democrats (Clinton), followed by eight years of Republicans (Bush).

    There seems to be a pendulum effect; it's "normal" for each party to hold the White House for eight years at a time; it’s hard, though not impossible, for one party to keep the White House for more than two consecutive terms.

    This historical pendulum effect would appear to benefit the Democrats in 2008; of course, as Michael Dukakis proved, nominate the wrong candidate and the public will keep a party in power for more than eight years.

    The biggest disadvantage Hillary will have: In 2000, Bush was a fresh face with a familiar name; he had only been in elected office for six years. In 1992, Clinton was a very fresh face, a near-unknown in 1991. In 1980, Reagan certainly had established a certain national familiarity, from his 1976 run, his governorship, and his movie career, but he had not been a central player in Washington political life.

    By 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton will have been front and center in American political life, day in and day out, for sixteen straight years. Has there been a week where she was not in the news? A month? I can’t think of a public figure who has so relentlessly lived in the spotlight of the political world for so long.

    She’s already had a dramatic, chock-full-of-ups-and-downs career: the 60 Minutes interview after Gennifer Flowers’s allegations, the Tammy Wynette comment, “two for the price of one,” her health care plan, “It Takes a Village”, “it’s for the children,” the imaginary discussions with Eleanor Roosevelt, the missing and reappearing papers of the Rose Law Firm, “the vast right wing conspiracy,” her claim to Talk magazine that her husband’s infidelity stemmed from childhood trauma over a conflict between his mother and grandmother, the embrace of Suha Arafat, the upstate New York “listening tour,” her claim to be a Yankees fan, the surprisingly easy victory over Rick Lazio, the eight million dollar advance for “Living History,” her post-9/11 work and subsequent embrace by the New York Post, and now the “plantation” remark…

    Credit her resilience; also to her credit, a lot of New Yorkers applaud her for being a better (and more hawkish) senator than many expected. But her life – along with her husband’s – has been a relentless cavalcade of controversies, dramas, revelations and surprises, like a soap opera that just doesn’t end. Is there a chance that by 2008, Americans will simply be tired of her? Is there a chance that by 2008, enough Americans are tired of her to vote for either a Democratic rival in the primaries or the GOP nominee?