Hillary Clinton in New Yorker

On Civil Rights: Op-ed: Sponsored flag-burning bill for centrist credential

A: She's a paradox. No one has been more diligent in trying to re-create her image as a centrist, even to the point of sponsoring legislation to make flag- burning illegal, which is a rather naked play for a kind of voter who is not attracted to her. The serious question is whether this can work. Missouri Democrats told me, over and over, that yes, they like Hillary Clinton, they think she's a good senator, they admire her personal qualities, but the last thing they want right now is for her to come to Missouri and campaign on behalf of their candidates. Missouri is a state that could go for a Democrat in a national election, but they were saying, We hope that the Party understands that nominating Hillary Clinton means that you take Missouri out of play, and when Missouri is out of play, thirty other states are out of play.

On Principles & Values: Hillary's paradox: she's not as liberal as people think

A: There are ten or twelve plausible candidates for the Democratic nomination for the President, some of whom we haven't really thought about yet. It could be Mark Warner, from Virginia, or Evan Bayh, from Indiana. Each person has a reason that he-and they're all men-would be a better alternative nationally to Hillary Clinton. What's bubbling beneath the surface right now is a feeling that Hillary Clinton could certainly capture the nomination, but she is not the best person to run for the Presidency. This goes back to the paradox of Hillary Clinton: she is a moderate figure-she's never actually been as liberal as people think. But by 2008 the country will have had sixteen or seventeen years of knowing Hillary, and people's ideas about her are fairly fixed. If only because of the amount of money she's raised, she's formidable, and she's in the way of all of these other guys