A.B. Stoddard: A bad night for Clinton?

While reports from the White House on election night described a fuming President Obama still in denial about his role in Democratic losses all over the country, you might have heard champagne corks popping in Hillaryland. Surely Bill and Hillary Clinton were breathing a sigh of relief.

The Tea Party Express issued a statement Wednesday titled “Rough Night for Hillary 2016,” listing the races the former secretary of State campaigned in only to see the candidates she endorsed go down in defeat. America Rising PAC released a similar list of places where she failed, the wide margins the candidates lost by and how many thousands of dollars the candidates spent to fly her there. A rough one for Hillary? Not at all.

Indeed, Clinton, expected to announce her presidential run shortly, made 45 campaign appearances for Democrats in less than two months that she intentionally scheduled close together for maximum impact and attention. But getting those Democrats elected wasn’t really the point. She helped them, and now they owe her. She went to bat, and loyalty will be expected in return.

As to Republican control of both chambers in Congress? No problem for Clinton, who will be counting on the near-constant conservative eruptions as GOP leaders attempt to quickly and neatly pass budgets that don’t lead to shutdown fights, to curb excessive oversight investigations that turn off the public, and to quell calls for impeachment once Obama issues his executive order on immigration that Republicans will declare “unconstitutional amnesty.”

A clean wipeout for Democrats is more politically beneficial for the former first lady — the bigger the margin, the better. What if it had gone down to the wire, with one or two runoffs that would decide a Democratic or Republican majority in the Senate? Clinton likely would have been pressed into service, campaigning for Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana or Georgia Democrat Michelle Nunn, with the national GOP apparatus — including surrogates like Mitt Romney — campaigning in the same places and tying her to Obama. What if the Senate had split down the middle, like it did in 2000, and Vice President Biden became a senator again, providing the 51st vote and cutting deals that could have potentially helped him run against her for president in 2016?

A Republican majority in the Senate gives Clinton something to run against. A Democratic majority led by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would have tied Clinton down, defending a gridlocked Senate and, of course, an unpopular president. Clinton will find it far easier to put distance between herself and Obama now, by occasionally defending his efforts to deal with a divided and bickering GOP Congress. She will be able to be supportive of bipartisan bills but also criticize all the veto-bait measures they pass, knowing Obama won’t sign them. She will highlight every partisan process decision and intraparty feud, and she will attempt to position herself as an option for the voters that is far from the unpopular president or what she hopes will be an unpopular Congress.

Republicans could foil her plans and actually govern, which they have repeatedly promised in recent days. Leaders have declared their intention to pass legislation to expand trade, export natural gas, drill on public lands, reduce regulations, lower the corporate tax rate, repeal ObamaCare — and when that bill is vetoed, to repeal the individual and employer mandates, the medical device tax and the risk corridor provision that protects insurance companies from losses. After all, the party wants not only to keep its Senate majority in 2016 when the map favors Democrats and forces Republicans to defend 24 seats, but it wants to win the White House as well.

Shutdowns, fiscal cliffs and brinksmanship are behind Republicans, GOP leaders say. Clinton is hoping they are in denial too.

Stoddard is an associate editor of The Hill.