Nation’s Chief Now a Chief Advisor

Figure out why you want the job and then condense your sales pitch into sound bites. Develop a 30-second version and a five-minute version. But be prepared to talk for half an hour as well.

That was among the free advice that First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton got last week as she contemplated running for a Senate seat in New York next year.

It came from one of the best politicians of her time: the president of the United States.

“You have to know, you need to know, why you want the job,” Bill Clinton told his wife during their vacation in Florida.

“I got elected president because I knew I had a very good idea what I wanted to do, and I think it’s very important,” he told her.

“I think that consultants and the polls, all that stuff, it’s all very important. But the most important thing is that you know why you want to serve and what you’ll do,” Clinton added. “It makes the effort of the campaign worth it--and it makes the risk of losing bearable.”

The president looked relaxed and rested, despite a rash of mosquito bites, as he recounted some of his advice to the first lady Sunday night aboard Air Force One as they returned from a five-day stay at a secluded wildlife preserve near Jacksonville, Fla.

When reporters asked if Hillary Clinton had reached a decision on whether to run, the president smiled coyly and said: “Whatever she’s for, I’m for.”

While discussing her political prospects, Clinton rued the fact that his own public service career, which spans three decades, is drawing to an end.

“If I could run again, I would,” he said.

He added that he supports presidential term limits but looks favorably upon the notion of giving a two-term president another shot after he or she has been out of office for a spell.

But even having passed the halfway point of his second term, Clinton is hardly sitting idly by while Campaign 2000 gets underway, as illustrated by advice he gave his wife and Vice President Al Gore.

With Gore mounting his own bid for the White House, and Hillary Clinton reportedly inching closer to a campaign for the Senate, the president has assumed the role of a behind-the-scenes strategist.

He has urged Gore to let his hair down, take off his jacket and “just be yourself, Al,” when the vice president campaigns in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Clinton characterized his advice to his wife as standard fare. “I gave her probably the advice I gave everybody,” the president said, adding that he reminded her that a political campaign resembles a job interview: Candidates are the applicants, voters choose whom to hire.

Although he clearly envies his wife’s political options, the president showed no signs of resentment.

“I never had a day in my life where I was unhappy,” he said. “I always knew what I wanted to do. I was happy doing it, and every day was good to me.”

Clinton did not respond directly to a question about whether any post-White House pursuit for him would be anticlimactic. Rather, he said simply that he has not made any decisions about his next career.

“But I’ve got a lot of ideas,” Clinton added. “I’m looking forward to being a person again--to having a life.”

During the 15 minutes or so that he spent chatting with reporters, the president also raved about his vacation. Its only downside, evidently, was the profusion of mosquitoes that easily penetrated the Secret Service protective bubble around the commander in chief.

Clinton displayed three large mosquito bites on one forearm and said he acquired so many more on his legs that it looks as if he has a bad case of measles.

One reason that the president seemed upbeat was his golf game.

“I had the best round of my life the other day--I had a 75,” Clinton said, adding that he took only one “mulligan,” or a do-over shot, during an 18-hole round.

He played on a nine-hole course on the grounds of the White Oak Plantation, a pristine 7,500-acre conservancy where he and the first lady stayed in a five-bedroom house with a swimming pool in the backyard.

The plantation also contains a 600-acre wildlife preserve that is home to many endangered species. From their window, the Clintons could see a white rhinoceros and her calf.

The president spent parts of each day working, including calling foreign leaders to consult on the Balkans crisis and reading a briefing book on Medicare. On Saturday, he awoke at 4:30 a.m. and watched on television the inauguration of Olusegun Obasanjo, the new, democratically elected president of Nigeria.

But for the most part, the Clintons relaxed. They biked and hiked around the plantation. And Hillary Clinton also played one round of golf with her husband--an annual tradition.

When asked if they might vacation in New York in August, the president replied: “I’ll go wherever she wants to go. From now on.”