AHC: Governor Hillary Clinton of Illinois.

Before anyone asks, yes, this is a thread inspired by "Political Animals." On that show, the main character is a clear Hillary Clinton analogue, but her circumstances do not match that of the current Secretary of State exactly. Instead of becoming a Senator from New York, she became the Governor of Illinois after the end of her husband's term in office. My challenge here is, make that circumstance a historical reality. Have Hillary elected Governor of Illinois after the end of Bill Clinton's Presidency. I know this is highly unlikely, approaching the limits of implausibility. And yet I want to impose more restrictions, if at all possible, I am interested in seeing if this can be achieved without a premature end of the Clinton Presidency. That is no defeat in 1996, no successful assassination attempt, no resignation, etc. Bill Clinton is President from January 1993-January 2001 as per historical reality.

Again I realize plausibility issues, here mostly due to comparative lack of political spotlight involved along with other issues, but I am curious what the consequences might be.

What kind of Governor would Hillary Clinton have made? And how would a career as Governor rather than as Senator have impacted her eventual Presidential ambitions?

Yes I know, this is probably a bad idea for any number of reasons.
 
Are there any residency qualifications involved here? I suspect there are. If so, this is outer limits AHC.
 
Are there any residency qualifications involved here? I suspect there are. If so, this is outer limits AHC.

Upon further consideration, this is the block upon which the whole thing collapses. Granted, you could easily have Hillary elected in 2006, since that's well within the unfortunate for my purposes three year rule. And the idea of her becoming Illinois' Governor implies her becoming a resident of that state.

Residency requirements do block a 2002 run within my parameters, since they require residency in 1999, which isn't going to be the case if Bill Clinton is President at the time. Even if it were possible for the first lady to establish residency there in 1999 with her husband still in office, other considerations probably preclude that.

So a 2002 run might well require something happening to President Clinton between 1998-1999.

Which is outside my original parameters, but when faced with outright impossibility, if I have any curiosity as the idea itself at all, I have to be flexible. Since this might require the death of President Clinton, I hereby remove the original requirement that the divergence come without that event. If someone can come up with a way to avoid that circumstance, great. And again a later divergence is preferable to an earlier one.
 
Given the apparent propensity of Illinois governors to end up in federal prison she might have to pull a Eugene Debs :D
That isn't a certainty, unless you think that she was predisposed towards corruption. But her violating the law isn't by any means inevitable. For one thing, she's still Hillary Clinton, and would therefore be under more public scrutiny then a Governor typically would be. If she's prone to corruption, given the added spotlight, and given all the conservatives in the country who would love nothing more than to see her in prison, my sense is that she'd be more careful than a typical Governor. And it isn't like the position of Governor in and of itself will make her corrupt. To the best of my recollection, George Ryan is in prison for crimes committed while he was Secretary of State, and not while he was actually Governor. And Hillary Clinton won't have a preexisting political career in Illinois. And I'd be amazed if she could as spectacularly corrupt and incompetent as Rod Blagojevich was.
 
Are there any residency qualifications involved here? I suspect there are. If so, this is outer limits AHC.

The residency requirement is 3 years. With a 1999 divorce and a move to Illinois, it could be possible for 2002.

That said, given the history of governors in Illinois and the remoteness of Springfield from the national stage, it's a poor platform from which to launch a career in national politics. New York's Senate seat is superior in every conceivable respect. The fuel of politics is money and media. New York has both in abundance, as well as a history of being friendly to carpetbaggers. See, e.g. Kennedy, Robert F.

That said, Illinois might have been a last resort if, for some reason, the path in New York was blocked by either an incumbent or some other reason like JFK, Jr. lives and is in the pipeline to run in 2000.
 
She could have just bought a house in Illinois in 1999, just as she did in New York in 2000. Once there, she could run for Governor in 2002 and get a reputation for cleaning up the state's politics, which would benefit her campaign in the aftermath of the Republican corruption scandals in 2006-2007. If she were Governor, this would give her an important role in the 2004 Senate election, meaning that Barack Obama, assuming he did get elected, would be unlikely to challenge her, and ineligible as running mate. She also wouldn't have a vote for the Iraq War to explain. Assuming everything else goes as OTL, the biggest threat to her campaign in '08 would be if she nominated Edwards, Spitzer, or Bill Richardson as her running mate (although with Richardson the investigation might have gotten cleared up more quickly).
 
That said, given the history of governors in Illinois and the remoteness of Springfield from the national stage, it's a poor platform from which to launch a career in national politics. New York's Senate seat is superior in every conceivable respect. The fuel of politics is money and media. New York has both in abundance, as well as a history of being friendly to carpetbaggers. See, e.g. Kennedy, Robert F.

Yes, because the "remoteness" of Illinois obviously hampered Barack Obama's career greatly. Regardless of how "remote" Springfield is, you seem to forget about the actual powerhouse of Illinois: Chicago.
 
With all the national and international attention that she received during Clinton's regime I think that she would see a state governorship as a step down in her ambitions. Only some kind of national or UN post would satisfy those desires, and the bigger the better.
 
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