Hillary Clinton’s eventual senate return: Not as easy as the bloviators would have you believe

By Robert Schlesinger

One of the assertions I’ve found most amusing and bewildering over the last couple of months is that either as a sort of consolation prize the Democrats could give or Hillary Clinton could claim the senate majority leadership. (As in: “In order to get Hillary out of the race, the Democrats should just give her the majority leadership.” Or: “She can always return to the senate and become majority leader.”)

This sort of speculation is one of those signals that the person speaking is ill-informed (the more frustratingly so if they are doing their speaking in front of a television camera).

And it would give me a chuckle, for reasons that Monday’s NYT spells out in part:

But talk outside the Senate of Mrs. Clinton becoming majority leader is considered truly fanciful within the Senate, where it has also provoked unspoken irritation at the image of Democrats waiting for Mrs. Clinton to swoop in off the campaign to guide her waiting colleagues. Not to mention the fact that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the current leader, does not seem to be going anywhere.

“I wouldn’t imagine Senator Reid is anxious to give up being majority chairman,” said Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska and a backer of Mr. Obama.

Even if Mr. Reid were to change plans, others who have been tending the Senate’s business while their colleagues seek the presidency might have something to say about that majority leader job. They include Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a supporter of Mrs. Clinton who is for the second time running the Senate Democratic campaign committee.

In other words: Can’t get there from here.

Of course there’s another reason, which the Times piece does not get into directly. At the start of the primary season, back in 1908, the Clinton campaign was not only the presumed front-runner, but was playing the part to the hilt, specifically with a bullying attitude of the with-us-or-against-us variety. It might have garnered a few allies, but it made no friends.