SHE is not standing for president, but Senator Hillary Clinton’s reluctance to be drawn into the 2004 race for the White House has not stopped her becoming a prime target in President George W Bush’s rapidly accelerating campaign for re-election.

Republican strategists last week launched a new fundraising appeal that singled out Clinton’s “ambition and prolific fundraising” as the main danger to the party’s majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In an apparent attempt to exploit conservative disgust with the success of Clinton’s newly published autobiography, Living History, Republicans are warning that neither Bush’s re-election nor a repeat of last year’s congressional victories should be taken for granted.

In a fundraising letter sent to party activists, Senator George Allen, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), declared: “If Republicans don’t take immediate steps to counter her, Senator Hillary Clinton will continue to rise unimpeded to the very pinnacle of power in Washington and we will see the dawning of a new, more liberal Clinton era.”

On the NRSC website, the pack of official Democratic challengers to Bush is being ignored while a prominent red warning sign exhorts: “Stop Hillary Now.” Bush supporters are being encouraged to “sign up to receive Hillary e-mail alerts”.

Democratic officials dismissed the Republican effort as a doomed attempt to divert attention from Bush’s failing policies. “I love these Republicans,” said Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “They just can’t get over the Clintons.”

Yet other Democrats acknowledged a real problem: none of the nine declared Democratic challengers has anywhere near the celebrity or money-making power of the former first lady who became the junior senator for New York.

Opinion polls have consistently indicated that if Clinton were running in the Democratic primary race she would win at least 40% of her party’s vote, compared with 16% for the nearest challenger, Senator Joe Lieberman.

Since she swapped the White House family quarters for an office on Capitol Hill in 2001, Bill Clinton’s wife has turned into a money magnet. She has become a formidable party hostess whose cosy fundraising dinners at her house next door to the British embassy have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic coffers. Last year she was the Senate’s top Democratic donor, providing $1.1m to the national party and local candidates.

“What Hillary has is believability as a possible future president,” said Bruce Buchanan, a presidential scholar at the University of Texas. “That opens the purses.”

Clinton continues to laugh off suggestions that she is planning to become the first woman president — either in 2004, when Bush may prove impossible to beat, or in 2008, when most of Washington expects her to make her challenge.

The problem for the Democrats, one Republican pollster suggested, is that Clinton, whose Senate performance has been much admired, has become “a gorilla surrounded by chimps”. No clear front- runner has yet emerged from a lumpen Democratic pack.

The party’s quandary has been magnified by the attention heaped on Clinton’s new book, which has sold 800,000 copies in less than three weeks and may cause one prominent conservative pundit to eat his shoes on primetime television.

Tucker Carlson of CNN bet that Living History would never sell 1m copies, and he promised to consume his footwear if he turned out to be wrong. “I’m going to be curious as to what sort of shoe he chooses — flip-flop or soft leather,” Clinton smirked.

As she later resorted to ice-packs to nurse a wrist bruised by hours of book signings on a coast-to-coast promotional tour, senior Democrats in Washington were not sure whether to be thrilled that she was raising more money or alarmed that her revitalised celebrity was hampering the efforts of other presidential contenders to assert themselves ahead of next year’s battle with Bush.

“I have to admit that I hope she sells those million copies very fast,” said Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives.

There were also signs of “dirty tricks” as Republican officials began suggesting that Hillary might succeed Senator Tom Daschle as the Democrats’ leader in the Senate next year.

Daschle is facing an awkward re-election battle in South Dakota. The New York Post reported that if he chose to retire rather than risk defeat, Hillary might be promoted to a high-profile platform that would be the perfect springboard for a 2008 campaign.

Other party sources said Daschle had no intention of retiring. Several more senior senators would be likely to object to a key leadership job being given to a first-term newcomer, whatever her pedigree. “The idea of Clinton rocketing to the head of the Senate has unnerved some (in the Senate) where tradition and men still run things,” the Post said.

Yesterday Clinton was in California, signing yet more books and continuing to protest that she had “no plans” to stand for president. But one way or another, between the Democrat need for her money and the Republican scorn for her past, she will find it hard to stay out of the coming campaign.

“Right now,” said Senator Trent Lott, a leading Republican fundraiser, “she’s probably the most prominent Democrat in America.”

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