What if Hillary found her own wedge issue, her own Sister Souljah? I ask Breaux. Would it work?

“It has to happen.”

But would it work? What does your gut tell you?

“It can work,” he says. “But it’s a helluva challenge.”

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the other politician with the name of Clinton couldn’t triangulate?

“That’s the challenge she has,” he repeats for the third time, clearly straining under his own ambivalence—Breaux’s very close to both Clintons, but he’s also a moderate, and he’s a blunt-spoken guy. It’s what made him so popular both in his state and among his colleagues. He gives me a pained, sheepish look. “I’m being nice. But it’s true.” He struggles for the right way to frame it. “Hillary’s the most exciting thing we have,” he says. “The question is whether that excitement can transform people who have a built-in opposition to her. The question is whether it’s enough.”

Here’s the grand irony about Hillary: She’s already turned around her own worst enemies. She gets along famously with her GOP colleagues, is astoundingly well liked; it’s almost a joke how popular she’s become in the Senate. “This is the way I’d describe it,” says Lindsey Graham, a puppy-eyed, mildly goofy Republican senator from South Carolina. “Hillary comes into an ego-driven body with a slew of bodyguards, which makes you different. If she changes her hairstyle, it makes news—in a body where everybody would like to make news. Yet there’s a level of trust with her that’s very real. When she does something with you, she makes sure that you’re getting as much credit—or more—than she is. Which is politically smart, sure. But I also think it comes easy to her.”

Graham is perhaps Hillary’s most unlikely fan. In 1998, he was one of the twelve congressmen who managed her husband’s impeachment.

“I think she could win every state John Kerry won. And she’d probably be a better candidate in the swing states.”
—Lindsey Graham, Senator (R)

“On the Armed Services Committee, Hillary has been anything but an ideologue,” he continues. “Anything but that. When I’ve got a new piece of legislation, and I’m looking for an ally on the other side, she’s one of the first people I call.”

Of course, it’s not unusual for senators to build all sorts of bizarre alliances. The rules of the place foster interdependence and compromise; it’s an ecosystem where the donkey really does lie down with the elephant. Yet even by Senate standards, Hillary has demonstrated a stunning flair for bipartisanship. In just four years, she’s managed to co-sponsor a bill with nearly every legislator who, at one time or another, professed to hate her guts. With Tom DeLay—that gerrymanderer of Texas, the House’s very own Ichabod Crane—she collaborated on an initiative concerning foster children. With Don Nickles, the former Oklahoma senator who breezily speculated in 1996 that Hillary would be indicted, she worked on a bill to extend jobless benefits. With Mississippi senator Trent Lott, who wondered aloud whether lightning might strike her before she arrived at the Senate, she worked on legislation to help low-income pregnant women. A Reuters story from April 2003 noted she’d already sponsored bills with more than 36 Republican senators.

“And she’s a lot of fun,” adds Graham. “That’s the thing that shocked me. We’ve traveled a lot. I mean, we went, let’s see . . . we went to Norway and Iceland and to the Arctic Circle. Estonia—”

Wait. She’s fun?

“A lot of fun! She’s got a great sense of humor.” Can he give an example?

He gives me a cross look. “Hey, you’re either funny or you’re not, okay? And she’s funny.”

I ask what he thinks of Hillary as a presidential contender in ’08.

“Some people would work morning, noon, and night to beat her,” he says. “And some people would sell their firstborn for her to win. But I think there’s also a sizable part in the middle that’d sit and listen to what she has to say. People are fair. I think she could win every state John Kerry won. And she’d probably be a better candidate in the swing states.”

He smiles. “There are Republicans who are saying, ‘Bring her on,’ ” he says. “But my counsel to them is, Watch what you wish for. Because I’ve worked with her. She’s intelligent, she’s classy, and she’s comfortable with who she is and what she believes. The Hillary Clinton who’s the subject of Republican campaign mail-outs and the Hillary Clinton who’s the senator from New York are vastly different people.”