I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis. Question: what are Hillary Clinton's memoirs worth?
Simon and Shuster thought they were worth an $8 million advance. They're betting that Clinton exhaustion won't have become irreversible by the time the book comes out – – in 2003.
I'm betting they're wrong.
I mean, what's she going to say? "Yeah, he lied to me"? Well, stop the presses. And if she knew he was lying, and actively helped him lie with that "right wing conspiracy" nonsense, what's the chance she'd actually admit it?
The fact is, celebrity autobiographies make a big splash, but they don't sell a lot of copies. And this one will have to be the best-seller of the decade to make money. The problem is, if there are any really juicy bits, the kind of people who are attracted to them won't pay $35 to read them in a book; they'll just wait for the tv sleaze shows to cover them.
There is one other possibility regarding this book. It comes out a year before the 2004 presidential election – and at a time when serious candidates are getting their ducks in a row. So maybe Simon and Shuster and Hillary are hedging their bets and hoping that could boost sales.
But how? By hillary being a candidate maybe.
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, tobacco follies.