THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2002 — New York Times columnist William Safire wrote an op-ed piece today that every paper in town, including this one, should have done months ago. Someone has finally noticed that a whole generation of Clintonites are attempting to take the governors’ offices in their respective states. In addition to former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Steve Grossman and former secretary of labor Robert Reich, who are both running in Massachusetts, former energy secretary Bill Richardson (New Mexico), former attorney general Janet Reno (Florida), and former secretary of housing and urban development Andrew Cuomo are all seeking to be chief executives of their respective states. "Can former Clinton cabinet members and White House aides who tasted fame and power in Washington find happiness in humdrum lives back home?" Safire asks.

While he astutely notes the phenomenon, however, Safire misses the broader political point. A few weeks ago, former DNC finance chair Alan Solomont explained to me what lay behind the gubernatorial-office stampede. The Clintonites know that state governors’ offices make the best farm system for the presidency. Aside from George H.W. Bush’s term in 1988-’92, former governors have occupied the Oval Office for the past 26 years. This is a function of several factors, including the executive skills governors get to exhibit, the fundraising opportunities governors have, and, finally, the general disregard in which the public holds activities that take place within the Beltway (i.e., everything prominent senators do).

That was one point largely missing from another of today’s New York Times’ stories, Richard L. Berke’s article on Senate majority leader Tom Daschle’s run/non-run for the presidency. Daschle and his supporters are privately encouraging talk of his potential candidacy, while at the same time publicly pledging his attention to the Senate. From an institutional perspective, Daschle will have a harder time justifying a presidential run than some of the other senators who are actively gearing up for one, such as John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina. Daschle not only has to struggle to maintain his party’s slim majority in the body, he must also serve as the Democratic focal point for almost all sniping at President Bush. This means the public will get to see only Daschle’s negative side rather than the cool, commanding executive presence a governor gets to put forward (see California’s Gray Davis). In moving forward with a presidential run, Daschle will have to remember the plight of former Kansas senator Robert Dole, who ran for national office three times unsuccessfully. Dole could never break out of the Senate; his third and final run, in 1996, was plagued by the public’s perception of him as a snarling reactionary, rather than the diplomatic statesman and war hero he had also been. (This was before Dole’s reinvention as a Britney-friendly pitchman.)

The pro-governor conventional wisdom does not favor Daschle and other members of the Senate. That’s why a new generation of Democrats are vying for gubernatorial office. But that conventional wisdom formulated before September 11 — and before the federal government began accruing power in a time of national crisis. The best hope for Daschle, Kerry, Edwards, et al. is that the new War on Terrorism restores luster to life in the Senate and overshadows the governors.