On September 11th what was Hillary Clinton’s greatest liability became the asset which may yet win the Presidency for her and save her party, if only for a few years. Think about it for a second: what word is most associated with Hillary Clinton in the popular imagination? “Bitch” is the first one that comes to mind for me and, apparently, I’m not the only one seeing as a search for those two words returns 161,000 hits in Google. But, it must now be asked: is being seen that way such a bad thing for Hillary?

It occurs to me that Hillary Clinton is almost ideally positioned to run for the Presidency as a sort of American version of Margaret Thatcher. I say this without any great enthusiasm, since I love Maggie and hate Hillary, but I see it as true nonetheless.

Is there anyone in America who doesn’t think that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a cold and tough woman? That’s certainly what I think. Frankly, if given a choice of possible Democrats, I’d rather have her confronting the terrorists than John Kerry, John Edwards, or Howard Dean. John Kerry would probably try and tell the terrorists about Vietnam, John Edwards would probably sue them, and Howard Dean would probably have a panic attack. It says something about the emasculation of the Democratic Party that, in my judgement, Hillary is probably the toughest dude among potential Democratic candidates for President in 2008.

Unless something dramatic changes, the 2004 election marks the ratification of Republican dominance of the American electorate. What’s generally been ignored is this: Bush, in terms of ability as a politician, was about as weak a candidate as the Republicans could have won. George W. Bush is a first-rate CEO, but he’s a terrible press spokesman. Moreover, President Bush suffered through the most virulent attacks launched against any President since Nixon and was plagued by a war which, by Election Day, was a wash at best. It’s worth bearing in mind that, all other things being equal, had there been no Iraq War and had the Republican candidate been Jeb Bush instead of George W. Bush, the odds seem high that the election results would have probably looked like those of 1984, 1972, or 1964.

That is not, of course, to say that the Iraq War wasn’t the right thing to do: it’s just to say that it had political costs. Unique political costs, I’d say, because the American public simply isn’t yet ready to comprehend the full implications of the war. By 2008, either it will have come to accept those implications or be dull to them. Either way, I’d simply note that it’s unlikely that such an issue will strike at Republican fortunes four years from now.

As things stand the Republican Party holds a substantially better hand than the Democrats. The Global War on Terrorism returns national security issues, a field in which Republicans dominate, to the front of the line. Republicans also hold a natural advantage on value issues and most economic issues.

Equally important, but almost totally ignored, is the fact that it appears likely that, in the next few years, President Bush and the Republicans in Congress are likely to enact the most sweeping reforms of entitlement programs since the Great Society and, perhaps, since the New Deal itself.

All of this adds up to a new and long-term Republican majority, especially as it appears increasingly likely that the Republican Party will be successful in its efforts to woo Hispanics.

As I see it, the Democrats have only one chance to win: move to the right of the Republicans on national security, steal their ideas on entitlement reform, and try and turn “values” issues back against the GOP.

The problem with this strategy is this: the base of the Democratic Party would never countenance a right turn on national security. Unless, I think, it was Hillary leading that turn.

From the Democratic perspective the wonderful thing about Hillary Clinton is that she’s already earned the loyalty of the base of the party. A fair chunk of the Democrat Party, especially after three major defeats in a row (and, from the early looks of 2006, probably four in a row) will be ready to march behind anyone named Clinton.

Hillary, with her time on the Armed Services committee, can present herself as an expert on military and defense issues, using any of the many open lines of attack from the right on terrorism. At the same time, she can appeal to the “values voters” of the left who, with the right effort, can be mobilized as well as those of the right can.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I don’t think that Hillary would look silly making tough pronouncements on terror. You and I probably wouldn’t believe her: but other people would. She wouldn’t look absurd proclaiming her intention to kill terrorists as John Edwards and John Kerry both did.

Republicans are wrong to be overconfident about the possibility of facing off against Hillary in 2008. Frankly, I think that she’ll be a hard candidate to beat. In fact, I only see four Republicans that I think would have a good shot of beating her: Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain, and Jeb Bush.

Of these, I think that Rudy is probably too liberal to win the Republican nomination without the support of the entire Republican establishment: something that he’s unlikely to get.

If the Constitution were to be amended, I think that it’s very probable that Arnold Schwarzenegger would easily be elected President, but I don’t think that it’s all that likely to be amended in time. Remember: Arnold still has to get re-elected as Governor in 2006, leaving him very little time to get a Constitutional Amendment pushed through and launch a campaign for 2008.

John McCain remains an attractive candidate but, in my view, by 2008 he’ll probably be too sick and too old to run for President and, in any case, I suspect the media won’t find as much to love about him as they did in 2000 if he runs against Hillary.

That leaves one man, I think, who can be counted on to hold the White House in 2008: Governor John Ellis Bush of Florida, the President’s brother.

To begin, Jeb is simply a better politician than his brother. He’s more articulate and has proven appeal in a key swing state. Better yet: he’s demographically appealing. A Catholic two-term Governor of the nation’s third-largest state (and largest swing state) with a Mexican-American wife and two Hispanic children, were his last name not “Bush” he would, at this point, be the runaway front-runner for the Republican nomination at this point.

Thankfully for us the, “the President’s brother shouldn’t run for President” argument won’t go very far when the other candidate is the previous President’s wife.