Feeding the TV Maw: Hillary in the Senate

Arriving on cue, the Election of the Next Century.

The question of what TV’s news and pundit hordes would obsess about in the post-Monica Lewinsky period--at least until her coming ABC interview with Barbara Walters--has been answered. Even as a twister of talk again moved in the direction of JonBenet Ramsey, another name was looming even larger.

Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“It seemed like the headlines changed overnight from Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial to ‘Hillary Clinton for Senate,’ ” said MSNBC’s Edie Magnus last week at the onset of moderating yet another TV panel theorizing about the first lady seeking the New York Senate seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Daniel Moynihan. The seat that she may not want.

She hasn’t said she will run.

More significantly, she hasn’t said she won’t.

That opening was plenty wide enough for a runaway media bandwagon to burst through last week. Clinging to it were TV guessers from ABC’s “Nightline” to the 24-hour news channels, all of them helping swell the boomlet of Hillary’s possible candidacy against New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani--who hasn’t said he will run either--into a deafening boom.

“If you ran against Mrs. Clinton, would it be down and dirty?” ABC’s Sam Donaldson asked Giuliani on Sunday.

Television isn’t the only participant in a speculation game centering on the first lady. A column in the current TV Guide, for example, wonders which TV interviewer will snare her for an exclusive, with media hounds Ed Rollins and Dick Morris among those weighing in on whether she would anoint Walters, Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, Diane Sawyer or Larry King.

As for Hillary running for the Senate, the sane, rational media approach would be to report that she’s giving “careful thought” to it, as she said in a statement last week, then report her Friday meeting with Moynihan, throw in a few quotes from experts saying how she might fare, and leave it at that.

The big story--the one worthy of huge headlines--would be the one announcing her candidacy.

But Godzilla must be fed.

On Friday, MSNBC’s “News Chat”--TV’s version of hyperventilating talk radio--raised the possibility that the first lady won’t be satisfied with being just one of 50 senators, posing the question: “Hillary’s Run: Sen. Clinton--or President Clinton, the Sequel?”

And they call this news.

Just as ravenous for a full banquet of Hillary, other TV inquisitors were just dying to learn whether she had the temperament to run for a Senate seat that she may not run for. Is she too short-tempered to survive a campaign she may not undertake? When she pursues the office she may not seek, won’t reporters ask her about Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones and Lewinsky and Whitewater and Travelgate and all the other “gates” she doesn’t want to talk about? And if they do, will she blow her top? And if she does, will they write nasty things about her? And if they do, won’t that sink the run for Moynihan’s seat that she may never make?

If that doesn’t destroy the candidacy that may never be, what happens if Hillary, a non-New Yorker unschooled in local customs, buys a slice of pizza and asks for a fork? Won’t that embarrassing gaffe swing thousands of votes to the Giuliani campaign that may never occur?

And when Hillary dresses for stump speeches she may never make, will she accessorize?

Finally, if Hillary doesn’t seek Moynihan’s seat, will Chelsea?

All right, the last two are mild hyperbole. But only mild.

Typical of some of the Hillary questions being floated gaseously last week was this one to former New York Rep. Susan Molinari from MSNBC’s Lori Stokes:

“We’ve talked about establishing a legacy, leaving a legacy and building a legacy. Certainly, can she build one if she’s able to once again distinguish herself from her husband as she did before he was governor when she was able to practice law, and she’s had to maintain this role of a first lady standing by the president?” Say what?

Stokes continued: “Isn’t she the type of woman who kinda wants to break away and stand on her own and say, ‘This is who I am?’ ”

This question came after Molinari, a Republican who is no Hillary confidant, had already told Stokes that she didn’t believe the first lady would run. But the show must go on.

It wasn’t only amiable fumblers like Stokes who were getting swept up in the open-ended questioning that produced hot wind. Astute reporters were participating, too.

CNN’s Judy Woodruff to the first lady’s former press secretary, Lisa Caputo: “How would she like serving in the Senate?”

Caputo: “I think, Judy, that is the central question, and I think that’s something that the first lady certainly has to decide. The central question is this: What does she feel is the proper venue through which she can carry out her advocacy and try and make a difference in terms of her issues? The question arises, is that the Senate? Clearly, having worked in the Senate, you know, it is, it’s an effective institution to get things done from a legislative perspective if you care to make an impact on the federal level. Clearly the first lady has to think about that.” Caputo piled on many more yada yadas in response to whether Hillary would like the Senate.

In other words, she had no idea.

That’s the point, of course. No one knows the answers to these what-if questions that pollute endlessly.

If Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name doesn’t go on the ballot, all of that whipped-up artificial analysis will have been moot. But not to worry. At least it filled some time.