Bill Clinton

Washington, July 17: It was billed as a strategy session for student activists, but it turned into the launch of Bill Clinton’s latest role in American politics. The one-time commander-in-chief is now cheerleader-in-chief for his wife’s undeclared but unconcealed run for the White House in 2008.

The last Democrat President abandoned his notes to signal that Hillary Clinton is ready to win back America’s highest office for their party. He was speaking at a seminar of college liberals in front of fellow high-ranking Democrats in Washington, the day after his wife’s office launched a revamped website.

Officially, it is part of her bid to retain her seat as a New York senator next year, yet in design it resembles last year’s campaign sites of President George W. Bush and his Democrat challenger, John Kerry.

Clinton’s message was the party has to win back support in “red” (Republican) America. Calling himself “the world’s most famous sinner”, he spoke of a Pentecostal minister in his home state of Arkansas who had voted for him but then backed Bush because “ever since you left, nobody in your party talks to us any more”.

But, he said, the pastor added: “I would vote for Hillary. I love her.” Since her election to the Senate in 2000, Hillary has been occupying ground traditionally deemed vote-winning for Republicans; her advisers include Mark Penn, the centrist Democrat strategist who helped Tony Blair to hold the middle ground in the general election.

She has maintained a robust stance on national security, stood by her support for the invasion of Iraq ? to the dismay of many Democrats ? and adopted a tough stance on illegal immigration. She has also appeared on platforms for joint policy initiatives alongside Newt Gingrich, the former Congressman who attacked her efforts to reform the health system during her husband’s presidency, and Senator Bill Frist, a Right-wing Republican and leading contender for his party’s nomination for 2008.

Most significantly, the strongly pro-choice Hillary has put the emphasis on reducing abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies.

Yet Hillary, as wily a politician as her husband, knows that she cannot afford to alienate her core support among Democrats if she is to win their presidential nomination. Even as she appeals to Republican supporters, she is attacking the President, last week mockingly comparing Bush to the goofy Alfred E. Neumann character in Mad magazine.

The reshaped website’s resemblance to Bush’s presidential web pages has not gone unnoticed. Patrick Ruffini, official “webmaster” for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, wrote: “They’re serious about something bigger than a Senate race?Whoever designed it clearly wanted it to be seen as presidential.”