Happy Days Are Hers Again

"CLINTON NEARLY READY FOR HER CORONATION," the New York Post informed us yesterday. Almost correct. To be precise, Hillary Clinton is nearly ready for her Restoration. The front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination has been talking much lately about those happy days when Clintons were in the White House and all was right with the world.

"Some of you might remember," she told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute yesterday. "We began with an agenda to address how to keep young Hispanics in school. . . . Well, that agenda unfortunately was put into cold storage. We're taking it out and we're warming it up and we're going to go back to business together."

Two hours later, Clinton strolled anew down memory lane as she accepted the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers. "We're going to be able to encourage Americans once again to believe that we can solve our problems," she told the union, informing its members of a need "to act like Americans again."

"Back in the 1990s." "Start working with the world again." "We're all in this together again." "Get back to working together." These phrases -- each of them uttered yesterday by Clinton -- might seem rather backward-looking for a candidate billing herself as an agent of "change."

But it must be working for her. The new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that a nostalgic two-thirds of Americans look back with approval on Bill Clinton's work as president -- double the 33 percent who approve of President Bush. That nostalgia may help to explain her surge in the polls (she's 33 percentage points ahead of her nearest rival, Barack Obama) and in fundraising ($3 million ahead of Obama in the latest quarter).

Hence all the coronation talk. The Chicago Tribune, Obama's hometown paper, on Tuesday handed Clinton the royal robes, labeling her "inevitable" and "presumptive." Yesterday, Post media critic Howard Kurtz bestowed on Clinton the scepter, writing that "the media have collectively decided that the wife of the 42nd president is the inevitable nominee."

If there is somebody in Washington who still believes there is suspense in the race for the Democratic nomination, that person did not attend yesterday's Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute's candidate forum at the Washington Convention Center.

Nine hundred seventy seats were arranged for the forum. Seven hundred thirteen of them were empty. And who could blame the no-shows? Clinton's closest rivals, Obama and John Edwards, skipped the event, leaving the Inevitable One alone among political pygmies.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), the opening act, went with the naked Latino pander. He greeted the crowd with "Buenos di¿s," and departed with "Si se puede!" In between, he pretended to hold up a lantern like the Statue of Liberty and recited Emma Lazarus.

Sen. Joe Biden (Del.) spoke of a fictitious Hispanic family without health care, imagining a woman who "turns to her husband and says, 'Juan, my baby, my child, what are we going to do?' "

Next, former senator Mike Gravel (Alaska) mentioned the Central American origins of two of his aides. "Can't get any more Hispanic than that," he boasted.

These warm-up acts left Clinton with the field to herself. She got the pandering out of the way early (she told the "American story" of her campaign manager, the daughter of Mexican immigrants) then got to work on the Restoration.