More Signs Hillary Clinton Will Soon Quit The Democratic Race?

Is this all overdosed-on-politics tea leaf reading, or are we now seeing accelerating indications that Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton will soon head for the exit door of the 2008 Democratic Presidential race racetrack?

ABC’s Political Radar has this:

Speaking to a crowd in Milbank, SD former President Bill Clinton admitted that today could be the last time he has such an active role in presidential politics.

“I want to say also that this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, ’til Hillary decided to run. But it has been, one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president,” said Clinton as he began his speech.

As Political Radar notes, this kind of talk isn’t typical of Bill Clinton anticipating some kind of master move. Or the never-say-die Bill Clinton.

And the Los Angeles Times’ highly-lively blog connects some dots as it wonders if Hillary is getting ready to leave the political building:

First, Hillary Clinton announced this morning that she’ll spend Tuesday evening in New York, the city that never sleeps and that she represents in the U.S. Senate. Not in Montana or South Dakota, where people are voting, but New York City.

Second, Bill Clinton told folks in South Dakota this morning that “this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, till Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president.”

Third, the folks at Politico report that Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman, tells them that “we just haven’t figured out our schedule past Tuesday,” so many members of the advance team are being sent home.

(UPDATE: A fourth factoid, Tom Edsall reports over on Huffington Post that Clinton has taken the “unusual move” of summoning “top donors and backers to attend her speech.”)

If you take all this together, it certainly sounds as if she is either going to get out totally or stay in the race in a pro forma way.

One observation. A lot of the speculation from angry Obama supporters has been that the Clintons were going to stay in this race to sandbag Obama so he lost and she could pick up the pieces in 2012.

If she gets out soon and truly works for the ticket she’d be in a good position in 2012 if he loses.

And if Obama wins? The once-again-flawed conventional wisdom seems to be that if Obama serves two terms she could be too old. Balderdash…

As Ronald Reagan, John McCain — and HOST of world leaders — have shown, being “too old” when someone is past 60 is usually in the eye of the beholder…and more likely than not that beholder is someone who opposes said person and is looking for an argument to halt a candidacy.

UPDATE: John Aravosis looks at the speculation and doesn’t quite buy the scenarios…