For a few weeks now, the frequency with which political commentators mull over the likelihood of a Hillary Clinton candidacy in the 2008 US presidential election has been increasing. She is attempting to master the degree of military arcana she needs to be taken seriously as a potential commander-in-chief, says Natasha Walter in the Guardian. The rightwing Washington Times concedes Ms Clinton is undergoing a metamorphosis as she attempts to replicate her husband's triangulation between a liberal base and more conservative swing voters.
There is that rarest quantity in US political discourse these days – consensus. "Though it's extremely early to be gauging her chances, Clinton's '08 prospects are an evergreen topic of conversation in political circles," comments a piece on her chances in the Christian Science Monitor.
A large part of the momentum – always an important propelling force across the epic spans of US political races – comes from the political narrative that pitches her as the first female US president. But while the Democratic nomination may at present be hers to lose, the primary season (when such matters are decided) is two-and-a-half years away.
The decision of Jeanine Pirro, a high-profile prosecutor from the New York suburbs, to formally seek the Republican nomination to challenge Ms Clinton in 2006 for her senate seat, has, however, given the Hillary-for-president story a whole new plot twist.
A recent poll suggested Ms Clinton would beat Ms Pirro 63% to 29% but, if the margin tightens, the senate race will be highest profile of all the midterms.
A win for Ms Pirro would be the political upset of the season, and even a loss would give Republican strategists a testing ground for what could be their third campaign against a presidential candidate called Clinton. That is, of course, if Democrat primary voters still regard her as a winner in the event that Ms Pirro inflicts some damaging wounds.
Her strategy at present is to attack Ms Clinton over her widely speculated upon presidential ambitions and to draw out an early admission on her intentions towards the Democratic nomination. The soundbite is as follows: Ms Pirro says New York laid out a "welcome mat" for Ms Clinton but the senator will be using the state as a "doormat" if she does serve out the full six year term.
The New York Times leader column is delighted that a state "used to boring elections in which a well-financed incumbent is pitted against an unknown sacrificial lamb" will finally get a decent race, albeit one where there is the danger that the contest between two female candidates will get characterised as a cat fight.
Marital connections add yet more intrigue. Bill Clinton is a known quantity. Al Pirro is a little less so, but Clinton supporters (who have been here before) are taking the fight to Ms Pirro and asking why there are no photographs of the two of them together among the 100 or so on her website. That may be something to do with Mr Pirro having served time in prison for tax fraud.
Peter Applebome, a New York Times writer, expects a gripping contest where the grand Hillary-for-president narrative becomes subsumed in a thicket of subplots as the state experiences a "smackdown featuring two smart lawyers with big ambitions and wayward husbands".
Ellis Henican, writing for Newsday, considers the two husbands as fascinating as the likely candidates. "The high political drama of Hillary-versus-Jeanine will be enlivened, every 10 minutes or so, by an even more titillating personal face-off - the battle of the difficult husbands, Bill and Al," he writes. "The impeached versus the convicted."
In the New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin envisages three scenarios for the end of the race. One: the "Clinton machine rolls over Pirro thanks to Hillary's celebrity status, and rising disgust with President Bush and the Iraq war." Two: Ms Pirro defeats Mr Clinton or wounds her enough to keep her out of the White House race. Three is the status quo scenario. Huge funds are spent on each side, Ms Clinton gets the same share of the vote as she did in 2000 and remains her party's frontrunner for the 2008 nomination.
And with one chapter in the Hillary story closed, another will no doubt open. There will be a lot of Ms Clinton in the years ahead.