New York Giddy Over Idea of Sen. Hillary Clinton

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. New Yorkers love the sound of those words--improbable as they might be--if a media frenzy bubbling away in the Big Apple is any indication.

Would the first lady be a strong candidate for the Senate seat being vacated in two years by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan? “You go, girl!” said bicycle deliveryman Carlos Rodriguez, at a red light in midtown Manhattan. “What an incredible idea!”

Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) thinks so too, and the chairman of the National Democratic Senate Campaign Committee sparked the Hillary boomlet last weekend when he suggested to NBC-TV’s Tim Russert just before “Meet the Press” that Mrs. Clinton would run for the office.

“Here’s a little mini-bombshell,” Russert told viewers, spilling the beans, and New York journalists have had a field day ever since. Indeed, many locals seem far more caught up in the idea of Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy than the degrading spectacle of her husband’s historic impeachment trial, set to begin today.

Interest in the first lady here is enormous, and it’s been fanned not only by dreamy-eyed political operatives but by book companies and journalists. This week, Knopf, a division of Random House, announced it will publish a biography of Mrs. Clinton by Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein; HarperCollins and William Morrow said they will also produce books about her.

Meanwhile, Vanity Fair has just published a penetrating profile of the first lady by best-selling writer Gail Sheehy, whose agent announced that she too is penning a book about Mrs. Clinton and her relationship with the president. “The public’s curiosity about this woman and what she’s going to do is insatiable,” said Random House publicity director Stuart Applebaum.

Americans’ appetite for Mrs. Clinton’s memoirs will be intense, should she write them, yet the first lady has not broached the subject with her publisher, Simon & Schuster, said editorial director David Rosenthal.

Mrs. Clinton has been equally tight-lipped about the idea of running for the Senate. A host of political experts insists she is unlikely to enter the race, even though she has made a flurry of high-profile appearances here in recent months, either showing up for society events or stumping for candidates.

“I think the chances of her [entering the race] are zero to none,” said veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “She’s not going to enter an arena that might expose her to any more abuse, not after the last six years in the White House.”

A friend of the first lady also doubted Mrs. Clinton would seek elective office. “Where I could see her is as the U.N. ambassador. I see her in a much more global role,” this person told Reuters.

Yet that didn’t stop the New York Times from devoting its lead editorial Tuesday to the suddenly hot notion that Hillary Clinton might throw her hat in the ring. Ditto for the New York Post, Newsday and a swarm of TV and radio commentators.

“In New York,” wrote Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman, “there are enough trial balloons being floated to lift Hillary Clinton in a basket across the Hudson River.”

While some New Yorkers might call the first lady a carpetbagger if she moved to the Empire State and ran for office, others remember that former Sens. Robert F. Kennedy and James Buckley did the same thing years ago and won. Under the Constitution, senators must only maintain a legal residence in the state they represent.

The open New York seat is already attracting a growing cast of potential candidates, including Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, the Rev. Al Sharpton and former GOP Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato.

Few doubt that Mrs. Clinton could raise the millions needed for such a contest, and some politicians salivate at the notion. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) told Newsday he has asked the first lady to run. “She says, ‘Tell me more.’ She smiles. She does very little talking, but she listens,” the Harlem power broker said. “Ain’t nobody going to run against the first lady.”

And if they did, said Bronx businesswoman Suzanne Turrey, “Hillary would cream them.”

Pausing on a freezing midtown street, Turrey offered Mrs. Clinton her unqualified support: “I think it’s a fa-a-a-bulous idea! She’s a rock of Gibraltar. She stands by her man, and by her convictions.”

To be sure, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be the only tough candidate. New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is also considering the contest, yet the normally outspoken Republican seemed taken aback when he was asked if he could “whip” the first lady. Playing it safe--and strictly for laughs--he replied: “They start investigations for less than that!”