Yes, Hillary still wants to be prez

"Eight years of Bill, eight years of Hill – that was the plan." Hillary Clinton said this shortly after the Clintons arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1993. From the very beginning, Hillary has had her eyes on the presidency. How could a woman who's said that "remaking the American way of politics, government – indeed, life," is her ultimate goal, ever settle for less? Acquiring the power to remake the world to her liking is at the heart of her every act, and so far her plan is right on track. She's gone from Watergate staffer to first lady of Arkansas to first lady of the United States to the U.S. Senate. The only logical next step is, of course, the presidency.

In fact, before the 1992 presidential election, when Bill Clinton was having trouble making up his mind on whether to run, Hillary told him, "Better make up your mind Bill, if you don't run I will." Clearly, she was willing and, in her own mind at least, ready to take over if he couldn't come to a decision (although one can't imagine what her platform would have been, given her very public failure to improve the Arkansas educational system she claimed to be so passionate about).

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In the early years of the Clinton presidency, when Hillary transferred her reformation "skills" from education to health care and in the process became the most powerful first lady in history, someone said to her, "President Clinton!" Instead of a polite correction, Hillary responded by saying, "Sounds good!"

After her health care plans went down in flames, a frustrated Hillary told a friend, "I want to run something." The fact that she had run health care reform into the ground didn't diminish Hillary's quest for power one bit. That debacle, of course, forced her to take a much lower profile in her husband's administration. Privately however, she still had ambition to burn.

In 1998, after her husband was impeached by the House and was in danger of being removed from office, Hillary said, "I don't know if he has a future, but I intend to." The very day that Bill Clinton was acquitted in his impeachment trial, Hillary held a strategy meeting in the White House to discuss her eventual run for the U.S. Senate.

When Hillary became Sen. Clinton from her, ahem, "home" state of New York, she told the National Press Club, "I'm having a great time being pres – being a first term senator." When the crowd laughed nervously she quipped, "You guys are going to get me into a lot of trouble." Oops, the real Hillary had slipped out.

Recently, the real Hillary slipped out again. Asked if she was planning to run for president in 2008 she responded, "Stay tuned." This is the same Hillary who once proclaimed, "We'll have a woman president by 2010." Who else could she be referring to but herself?

Forget the news stories claiming that she may not run in 2008, opting instead for a long-term leadership role in the Senate. One of Hillary's followers recently intimated that "she would be letting herself and her supporters down if she declined to take a shot at the White House." Much of the money she's raised is earmarked toward a presidential campaign.

The real question is, of course, can she be elected? Is America ready not just for a woman president, but for a rehash of the ugly Clinton years? As Hillary herself said: Stay tuned!

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Thomas D. Kuiper is the author of the Hillary Clinton quote book "I've Always Been a Yankees Fan: Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words" (World Ahead Publishing, May 2006, ISBN 0974670189). He works in the field of corporate law in San Francisco.