This Hillary Moment

(image via yale)

Senator Hillary Clinton and The Oily Art of the Beverly Hills A-List fundraiser go together like, well, like Bill Maher and skanks. It's a natural collabo, dahling.

The Corsair is not trying to impose any "on-the-DL" irony when we put quotations around Senator Clinton's Senate Reelection -- cough, cough, Presidential, cough, cough -- Campaign. Heaven forfend. No matter how dubious it seems that the distinguished Senator from New York needs to raise this much cash for a relatively safe Senate seat, we believe it when she says she's not decided on the Presidency yet. (Averted Gaze) Insinuating a Presidential run is the job of Radar:

"Meanwhile, with the Battle for Barack in stalemate, Hillary has been courting another Democratic comer to add some color to her projected ticket. At a private dinner last week at Westwood One CEO Norm Pattiz�s Beverly Hills mansion, Hillary schmoozed some of L.A.�s biggest Dem donors but saved her best moves for the city�s mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa. A guest at the dinner says Clinton gushed over Villaraigosa and grabbed multiple photo ops with the rising Latino pol. 'The fact is,' says the guest, 'Hillary knows she�ll need Villaraigosa to capitalize on the Hispanic vote. She�s getting her licks in way before any of the other Dems.'

"Hill�s West Coast jaunt also generated some much-needed green. Combined with proceeds from a young Hollywood fundraiser earlier that evening�attended by Christina Aguilera and Lindsay Lohan�sources say Hilary walked away with a cool $1 million for her 'senate re-election' campaign. The dough will most likely be put toward an exploratory committee in 2006 when Clinton is expected to officially declare her candidacy."



(image via WolvertonMountain.com)

Cantankeous meany and masterful insider journo Robert Novak agrees somewhat with that assessment:

"Party insiders in Washington and New York, including many who ran the last two losing Democratic presidential campaigns, say they have never before seen anything like the way Clinton has sewn up the nomination. In particular, they say, she has cornered Eastern money in a way nobody else ever has done at such an early date.

"At a dinner party in a private room of a Los Angeles restaurant attended by eight Democratic politicians, I was asked to assess the political scene. I concluded with a preview of the distant events of 2008. While there had not been so open a race for the Republican nomination since 1940, I said, Clinton was dominant for the Democrats. For someone who is neither an incumbent president nor vice president to have apparently locked the nomination so early is without precedent."

Next week Senators Evan Bayh and Clinton will have a "coal miner's glove" match over who gets the Western States and their respective -- ahem -- "reelection" campaigns (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment).