WP: To the Loser Go the Spoils
By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, June 25, 2008; Page A03
....(A)s she returned in defeat to her old home in the Senate yesterday, she was received as if in triumph. And, in a sense, her stature had increased during the failed primary battle: She left as a legislator but returned as the leader of an 18 million-strong movement of women and working-class voters -- a group whose support Clinton's Democratic colleagues fervently desire. And so, as Clinton entered a private luncheon in the Capitol, these colleagues greeted her with cheers, hugs and high-fives. "It's great to be here among my colleagues," Clinton teased, "just another regular, plain old superdelegate."...
Two hundred journalists, interns and others awaited her arrival at the carriage entrance outside the Senate chamber yesterday. A Senate official tried to keep order among the cameras, boom microphones and shotgun-wielding cops: "I need media credentials out! I need a space for her!" Greta Van Susteren snapped pictures on a camera phone. Even Vice President Cheney, arriving in a sirens-blaring motorcade for lunch with Republican senators, merited no more than a murmur from the mob awaiting Clinton's appearance.
"Heads up!" somebody called out. The interns erupted in a cheer as soon as the leg of Clinton's turquoise pantsuit appeared though the doorway of her Lincoln Town Car. "Like the Roman triumph," Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) observed wryly as he watched the scene. Bayh, who admitted that his own return to the Senate went "largely unnoticed" after he abandoned plans to run for president, said of Clinton: "It's good to see there is life after the presidential campaign."
If anything, the return made Clinton appear larger than life....
Clinton worked her way through the crowd of admirers and climbed the Capitol steps; at the top, colleagues offered hugs....
***
After Clinton's brief words to her colleagues at the lunch, (Majority Leader) Reid and other Democratic leaders formed a procession to escort Clinton toward the reporters outside. Reid described "one of the most emotional caucuses I've attended," complete with tears....Clinton delivered a version of the party-unity theme she had voiced behind closed doors. "I come back with an even greater depth of awareness about what we have to do here in Washington," she said. She spoke with vagueness about her new role ("to be the very best senator I can be"), her plans ("I'm rolling up my sleeves and getting back to work") and her vice presidential ambitions ("I am not seeking any other position"). And she repeated the requisite promise to "work very hard to elect Senator Obama our president."...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/24/AR2008062401282_pf.html 
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