FRIENDS of Hillary Clinton have been whispering the unthinkable. Despite her status as the runaway frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president, some of her closest advisers say she might opt out of the White House race and seek to lead her party in the Senate.

The former first lady longs to return to the White House with husband Bill as consort. Only last week she told television viewers America would be led by a woman one day. “Stay tuned,” she said.

First, however, she has to win the election. Some Democratic party elders — the American equivalent of the Tories’ “men in grey suits” — say Clinton may back out of the race of her own volition.

“I would not be surprised if she were to decide that the best contribution she can make to her country is to forget about being president and become a consensus-maker in the Senate,” said a leading Democratic party insider. “She believes there is no trust between the two political sides and that we can’t function as a democracy without it.”

As senator for New York, Clinton has forged alliances across party lines with leading Republicans such as Senator John McCain and Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives. In the eyes of the electorate, however, she is a potentially divisive figure.

A recent poll for Time magazine showed that 53% of the electorate said they had a favourable impression of Clinton and only 44% viewed her negatively, figures that President George W Bush can only dream of at the moment. Even so, 53% of independent voters said they would not vote for her.

“The prospect of a Hillary for President campaign has put much of the Democratic establishment in a bind,” Time concluded. “The early line is that Hillary would be unstoppable in a Democratic primary but unelectable in a general election.”

The solution, insiders say, is for Clinton to take over as Senate minority leader in 2009 from the lacklustre Harry Reid, senator for Nevada. One well-respected blog, The Washington Note, recently claimed that Reid privately told Clinton the job was hers if she gave up her presidential ambitions.

Reid’s office denied it, but the claim made its way into the Los Angeles Times where it was suggested she would make a “superlative Senate leader” while keeping her options open for the 2012 presidential race.

Clinton has raised a whopping $33m for her Senate re-election campaign in New York, which is likely to result in an emphatic victory for her in November. The leftover sums can be switched to a presidential bid. The size of her war chest is a sure sign that she intends to be ready to campaign at full tilt the moment she presses the “go” button.

Her final decision is likely to be made next spring. One close friend of the Clintons said: “There is no way she won’t run for president.” According to a member of “Hillaryland”, her close-knit inner-circle, she would be letting herself and her supporters down if she declined to take a shot at the White House.

Others are not so sure. If she balks at the presidency, “she can win a huge amount of goodwill by donating her money to colleagues in the Senate,” another associate said.

Terry McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a close friend of the Clintons, believes she will be able to see off all challenges in primary elections should she stand. “She is very tough and very determined. Nobody is going to think she is not strong enough on national security. If she decides to run, clearly she will have the necessary resources and she will give people reasons to vote for her.”

Among them, McAuliffe believes, will be former President Bill Clinton. “He is a gigantic asset. He is probably the most popular politician in the world.”

On one subject, Clinton’s friends are united. They all believe that Bill, her closest adviser, wants her to go for it.

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