Beyond the Dome

My story on Hillary Rodham Clinton's return to the Senate is up now. What it doesn't totally capture, though, is the pure stagecraft of the event. It's not like she could have just sneaked back into the place, so Clinton's people made the most of the occasion.

This morning, her press office sent word that she'd come to the weekly Senate Democratic luncheon in a room just off the Senate chamber, sometime between 12:45 and 1 p.m. The best place to get pictures, we were told, was just outside the Capitol near a first-floor entrance frequently used by the senators.

So all the camera crews, and a few dozen reporters, showed up at the designated time and waited for her SUV to drive up. A crowd of about 50 tourists got wind of her arrival too (imagine that), and stood on the Capitol steps, waiting patiently for the show to begin.

A press gallery staff member eased the camera crews back, clearing a space so Clinton could walk up the steps to shake hands with the tourists. "Move back seven steps, please! You'll still get the shot!" Clinton would not be speaking to the press, her aides said, but she'd talk to them after the luncheon was over.

At about 1:10, Clinton arrived to cheers from the crowd. She walked out into the driveway, smiled and waved to the crowd, and made her way through the crowd of tourists as she walked up the steps.

"Hi back there!" Clinton said to one tourist who couldn't reach her to shake hands.

"We missed you!" said one woman closer in. "Thank you! Good to see you!" Clinton said, still smiling and shaking hands.

Then she walked the rest of the way up the steps into the Senate Democratic luncheon, where her old friends - Sens.. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and, of course, Charles E. Schumer of New York - were waiting to greet her.

Oh yes - and Vice President Dick Cheney showed up too, arriving in his motorcade about 20 minutes before Clinton showed up. He emerged from his SUV, walked out in the darkness of the covered entrance, and disappeared into the Capitol. The tourists didn't care.