(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

She lost the Democratic nomination, but Hillary Clinton finally beat the vast right-wing conspiracy. For fifteen years, she’s been a nemesis and fund-raising gold mine for the Republican Party, but the McCain-Palin campaign, eager to rehash her primary-season attacks on Barack Obama and hoping to attract disappointed female voters, spent months praising the New York senator. “It’s now become part of our vocabulary that Hillary Clinton is a more mainstream Democrat, a moderate Democrat,” says Representative Peter King, the Long Island Republican. Former senator Al D’Amato agrees: “She will not be the polarizing figure that Republicans heretofore would run at.” At home, she’s now safer than ever. “There’s nobody who can challenge her to a competitive race in New York,” says GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who worked for a 2006 opponent, KT McFarland, and sees her consolidating her Senate power and getting respect from across the aisle. “It’s not about the Clintons anymore,” he says. “It’s about Obama.”

Have good intel? Send tips to intel@nymag.com.

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Table of Contents: Nov 17, 2008 issue of New York | Subscribe!