I was rather bemused to see this quote from the June 28, 2008 issue of New York Magazine:
"What strikes me as inarguable is that Hillary is today a more resonant, consequential, and potent figure than she has ever been before. No longer merely a political persona, she has been elevated to a rarefied plane in our cultural consciousness. With her back against the wall, she both found her groove and let loose her raging id, turning herself into a character at once awful and wonderful, confounding and inspiring—thus enlarging herself to the point where she became iconic. She is bigger now than any woman in the country. Certainly, she is bigger than her husband. And although in the end she may wind up being dwarfed by Obama, for the moment she is something he is not: fully, poignantly human."
I know that New York is Hillaryland. After all the New York Times endorsed her, even as most major newspapers across the country backed Obama. For some reason, Hillary's supporters are obsessed with making her 'larger than life.' This article is clearly trying to vaunt her back into the national discourse as an omnipresent figure. They are even trying to credit Hillary for helping to create the Obama juggernaut. I hate to be the buzzkiller, but Hillary will NEVER come close to being as powerful as Obama. Obama is the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party and he will be President. He will be the most powerful man, not just in the US, but in the world. Hillary is now on the sidelines. A place she loathed ending up and fought ferociously to sidestep. Hillary can't let go of her hunger for power.
After the primaries ended there was a concerted effort to make Hillary indispensible to Obama's victory in the upcoming elections. Since he won, Obama has done an amazing job of bringing many voting blocs to his side, including women, and continues to lead in the polls despite vitriolic attacks by Hillary in the primaries. The sour grape eaters must be dismayed at Obama's continued meteoric rise above and beyond his detractors in the Democratic Party. I am sure Hillary will find her place in America's body politic, but she will never ever come close to being as powerful as Barack Obama. And he does not need her.