Can anything stop Hillary?

New York

It may have been lost in all the news about Iraq but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat Senator of New York, has received the 2005 National Farmers Union presidential award for her leadership in introducing the Milk Import Tariff Equity Act. The snippy feminist who nearly derailed her husband’s first presidential campaign by scoffing that she didn’t just ‘stay home and bake cookies’ can now be presented as the Butter Queen of the Empire State.

It’s another piquant moment in the stunning evolution of Hillary Clinton. The first lady who chafed at the hostessy duties of political wifehood has been all homey practicality since she got out of the White House. At the same time her political image has morphed from blue-state bluestocking to unscary centrist. Far from the elite drawing-rooms of Manhattan she has worked her behind off in the backwoods wooing farmers and townsfolk upstate, where the values and problems are more like those in the rural parts of her native Illinois. This won’t just help her get re-elected to the Senate. It’s excellent market testing for perfecting a red-state presidential pitch for 2008.

So far, Hillary’s re-election campaign has been flawless. In fact she’s succeeded in inducing the Republican opposition to run straight off a cliff. Their candidate was meant to be Jeanine Pirro, the formidable district attorney of Westchester County (where Hillary lives), a firecracker brunette in four-inch Manolo Blahnik heels who is famed for her toughness in busting drug rings and snaring internet paedophiles. They didn’t seriously think she could win, but they figured she could dent Hillary’s armour by making a contest of it while amassing a useful fundraising list of diehard Hillary haters to be tapped in case of a presidential bid. But Pirro is unexpectedly flaming out, her cable-TV self-possession melting under the cool professionalism of Hillary’s disregard and her $15 million war chest.