America/ Conor O'Clery: While Hillary Clinton has been getting all the attention for her book, Bill Clinton has been the subject of quite a buzz in New York. The word is that the former president, who has an office in Harlem and lives in Chappaqua just 40 minutes away, might run for mayor of the Big Apple in two years.
The idea was floated by the Washingtonian magazine and was followed by a column in the New York Times and then the inevitable questions to Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg about what he thought. Hizzona' responded that he fully expected to be re-elected when his term expires in 2005, even if Bill Clinton runs.
Clinton's spokesman said "running for mayor is not something he's considering". Maybe not right now, but Clinton reportedly did not say Yes or No when urged by a New York Democrat to think about it. The prospect of being in charge of a mini-state city with its own police force and foreign, health and education policies must be enticing to a youthful out- of-work ex-president. Also, New Yorkers love Clinton.
He has become part of the Big Apple's social scene, blithely enjoying the company of Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall at a movie promotion on the USS Mason at Pier 88 on the day the news broke of how Hillary would like to wring his neck.
Moreover, New Yorkers are really disenchanted with their billionaire mayor who has presided over a painful period of job losses, declining services, higher subway fares and bridge tolls and rising sales taxes. It is almost as bad as the mid '70s when the city appealed to president Gerald Ford for a bail-out, but got only the famous Daily News headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead."
Only 24 per cent of New Yorkers approve of the job Bloomberg is doing, the lowest ranking for any mayor since 1978, according to a New York Times poll.
Some 73 per cent believe the city's economy is "bad" and 59 per cent say it is harder to make ends meet than a year ago. Another poll found that almost half of New Yorkers - in a city that loves celebrities - would not even want to have dinner with Bloomberg.
Democratic Congressman Charles Wrangel of Harlem believes Clinton would have no problem getting elected. As someone who eliminated a national deficit of hundreds of billions, Clinton would be well qualified to close the comparatively modest $4 billion New York budget gap.
He would also be well placed to appeal for help to a new incumbent of the White House, though this could prompt a new Daily News headline, "Hillary to Bill: Drop Dead!"
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Enough about Hillary Clinton already, what about the real First Lady? Laura Bush has been making a little news herself, sharply stepping up her profile in advance of election year and preparing for a fund-raising tour in coming months.
Conservative Republicans really like Mrs Bush mainly because she is not Mrs Clinton. Unlike her predecessor, she has an aversion to politics and moved the First Lady's office back from the West to the East Wing when the Bushes took over the White House.
Sincere, painfully shy and untainted with controversy of any kind, Laura Bush has always sought to avoid the limelight.
When they married in 1977, George Bush promised her she would never have to make a speech. Another broken promise by a spouse! The former librarian from El Paso speaks frequently on literacy and reading. On September 11th, 2001, she was addressing a Senate committee on the subject when word of the attacks came. She likes to hold literary afternoons, though earlier this year she cancelled a poetry symposium when some of the poets invited wanted to recite anti-war verses.
With strong "family values" and 73 per cent favourable rating, according to a Fox New poll last week, Laura Bush is a valuable campaign asset and will visit several cities that the President skips to raise money for her husband's re-election. Her only known interference with his work came after President Bush said "Wanted, dead or alive" about Osama bin Laden. "Tone it down, darling," she told him. But he didn't.
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Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is said to be gearing up for a run at Governor of California. The opportunity could come sooner than the next election. A political earthquake is taking place in California where a Republican move to recall the unpopular Democratic Governor Gray Davis looks likely to succeed. The organisers claim they have collected more than 600,000 of 897,158 signatures necessary for a recall election.
Davis, re-elected just seven months ago, is just about as unpopular as Michael Bloomberg, with his approval also slumping to 24 per cent as the budget surplus soars to almost $40 billion and voters face tax increases. If there are 900,000 signatures by mid-July, state law stipulates that an election should be held in the autumn in which voters would be asked if Davis should be ousted and if so, which candidate should replace him.
The 55-year-old Terminator star and Republican activist is one of several prominent Republicans poised to compete should Davis be terminated. He would love to be governor, he told Esquire magazine.
This week he delivered a campaign speech to the Washington anti-tax group Club for Growth. At one point he said coyly: "I mean, this is really embarrassing. I just forgot our state governor's name - but I know that you will help me recall him."
Schwarzenegger is expected to decide whether to run after the release next month of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. With his money and name recognition, he could be the "800-pound gorilla in this race", said Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth, though Bob Mulholland of the California Democratic Party dismissed him as an "egomaniac who gets paid a lot of money for movies".
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The French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, has just published a book of poetry but his arch-rival, the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, talks in verse all the time it seems. Humorist Hart Seely has released a book of Rumsfeld's "poetry", taken from his briefings to journalists. Consider Rummy's rumination on intelligence, reported here some weeks ago in prose.
"As we know, there are known knowns.
"There are things we know we know.
"We also know there are known unknowns.
"That is to say
"We know there are some things we do not know.
"But there are also unknown unknowns
"The ones we don't know we don't know."
Perhaps Laura Bush will invite him some day to one of her literary salons in the East Wing.