Could we see a new President Clinton?

A few months ago I was giving a speech in Washington during which I said how apt it would be if the Clinton era turned out to be a nasty interlude between two Bushes. (Thank you for laughing.)

The question period arrived, and somebody - there's always an awkward customer - asked how I would feel if the next Bush era turned out to be an interlude between two Clintons.

Until that moment, I hadn't quite seen this coming, though of course I should have done. The assumption of a Gore defeat and a Hillary Clinton victory in November 2004 was quite a plausible one even then, and the first outcome would obviously create a Democratic Party quite vulnerable to the implicit attractions of the second one. Is it, then, possible that our current First Lady will manage the ultimate revenge of becoming the first lady president, or at least the first lady nominee?

On the face of it, the chances are quite promising. The Democrats are extremely low on talent at the top, as the recent campaign has made clear. The senior figures of the party are Congressman Richard Gephardt, the House minority leader, Senator Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, and Gray Davis, the Governor of California.

In varying dosages, they are all types who have grown old before their time in the school of compromise and conciliation. Not one of them can give a speech or pull a crowd or arouse any but the most transient emotion. Mr Davis, true, is a genius fund-raiser but if the name of the game is shaking the money-tree then the clear winner is Rodham or Clinton before we even start.

Mrs Clinton's money-recruiting abilities got a public workout over the weekend, when it was announced that she would receive $8 million for her memoirs. The publisher - Simon and Schuster, which beat Tina Brown and Talk/Miramax to the punch - will thus be paying her slightly more than the Pope for a book that more Americans will probably read. An interesting feature of the deal is the amount that will come to Mrs Clinton without delay, and before a word has been written. This is probably for two reasons. She needs some new safe-houses, and she needs to close the deal before she takes her oath as a Senator next month.

I hear on good authority that the house she "bought" in Chappaqua, in upstate New York, is no more her idea of home than it looked at the time. Now that she no longer needs to flatter the voters by playing the part of local gal, a base nearer the Upper West Side of Manhattan may be indicated. She also needs somewhere in Washington for Senatorial purposes and has reportedly earmarked around $5 million dollars from her book advance to buy the Georgetown mansion that was the family home of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. All this needs to be wrapped up before the local property-price boom that will probably follow the arrival of Bush's rich Texan friends in the nation's capital.

The Congressional Accountability Project, a non-partisan group, has criticised the book deal as not conforming to "usual and customary contractual terms". This criticism has no legal force; it is only in the House that there are rules governing book contracts (and have been since Newt Gingrich did his deal with Rupert Murdoch).

Nonetheless, for a sitting Senator to be engaged in such high-rolling so soon might look a bit - well - greedy. So why not get it done even sooner than that? On the assumption that her husband can ink a book contract at least as lucrative, we can safely say that the Clintons have done pretty well out of staying together, and amazingly well out of refusing to discuss their "private" life.

Of course, they are now free to go their separate ways if they choose, but I have a feeling that they will stay nominally married. And, of course, if the President has no intention of running for mayor of New York, he can always say so - which he hasn't. (He has confined himself to saying in public that he favours changing the 22nd amendment to the Constitution, so that an ex-president could legally seek a non-consecutive third term. But I doubt even he will run against her.)

There are now two kinds of Democrat; those who believe that the Clintons helped lose Gore the election by soaking up so much of the money and attention, and those who believe that Gore lost the election by failing to make enough use of the First Family. The question is not as moot as it might have been, because Gore is now not the loser so much as the man who could have won and perhaps did. Had he been even narrowly but clearly beaten, the party would not have wanted to hear from him again. As it is, however, it will be hard to deny him a shot at renomination if he decides to take one.

But this actually makes Mrs Clinton's life slightly easier. New York would not easily have forgiven her if she became a Senator only to use the state as a launching pad. But after one term, that objection will soften. So she has the two crucial elements - of time and of money - on her side.

The man who under-wrote the mortgage for the Clinton "family home" in Chappaqua is yet another fund-raiser and fixer, named Terry McAuliffe, who is also involved with raising money for the Clintons' legal defence fund (their most outstanding debt).

Barely noticed in the tumultuous events of the past few days, Mr McAuliffe has been put on the fast track to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It was clear that, despite some objections to his past business dealings, he was promoted because he had the backing of the White House. Vice-President Gore had another candidate in mind, but he was too preoccupied to lobby for him. So it goes and so, on past form, it will go on going. American history may one day read: 1988-2008: Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. Unbelievable? The first three phases of it have tested our credulity enough.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.