Hillary’s Consolation Prize?

The Senate might not be as attractive a job for Clinton as it once was, given that she would be surrounded by Democratic colleagues she believed betrayed her by supporting Obama (among them: Sens. Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Jay Rockefeller, Claire McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Chris Dodd and Bob Casey). If Obama is elected president, she would have to carry water for him in the Senate. If McCain wins, it would be more of the same for Clinton in opposition to a Republican president. Being governor of New York might be preferable even to being Senate majority leader—another scenario being floated about Clinton's future.

Even if the gubernatorial gambit doesn't materialize, it reflects deep concern among Democrats about how to extricate Clinton from what appears to be a losing campaign without doing further damage to the party. Should she handily win all 10 remaining primaries, which even her campaign does not expect, she would still trail in pledged delegates and the popular vote (excluding Florida and Michigan, where revotes are now unlikely).

The best exit strategy for her, say some Democratic superdelegates who aren't talking for the record, would be to suspend her campaign after winning Pennsylvania. (George H.W. Bush ended his 1980 campaign against Ronald Reagan after defeating him in the Michigan primary). That way, Hillary would go out on a high note—higher still if it was accompanied by reports that she could be headed for Albany. For now, Clinton has rebuffed that advice and said publicly that she will stay in the race even if she wins Pennsylvania only narrowly. (If she loses Pennsylvania, by all accounts she's out).

Becoming governor of New York might not be a cakewalk. "Oh, great, so she's going to get in the way of two African-American politicians now?" said one Washington, D.C., Democratic operative. "I don't think so." Former New York mayor Ed Koch, a strong Clinton supporter who believes she can still win the presidency, said he thought it was a bad idea: "I'd advise her to stay in the Senate."

Clinton campaign aides scoff at the gubernatorial trial balloon and say they expect her to play through to the end of the primaries in June. "This is the first I've heard of it," says Howard Wolfson, Hillary's spokesman.

"Every time the punditocracy says otherwise, she happens to win," says another campaign aide, declining to comment on the record. "Hillary believes, and so do I, that she'll be president this year. It may be an alternative universe, but it's the one they [the Clintons] live in."

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