Mark Steyn thinks Hillary should run.

Driving through Lebanon, N.H., the other day, I accidentally veered off on to the shoulder and just missed slamming into a huge billboard proclaiming, ''HOWARD DEAN--THE DOCTOR IS IN!'' Not the way I'd want to go.

But the sign's right. Dr. Dean is ''in.'' The Democratic presidential candidate is raising a ton of money on the Internet, and he's taking it in itsy-bitsy $20 donations, a rare distinction in a party that's become far too dependent on big contributions from a small number of wealthy donors. A presidential campaign has to have an element of romance, and right now Howard Dean is the only guy in the Democratic field providing any. Even those of us who've spent enough time watching him govern Vermont to dismiss him as a mean, thin-skinned, low-down, unprincipled, arrogant no-good have to salute the canniness he's shown in running his presidential campaign.

....The way to look at it is like this: What does she have to gain by waiting four years? If Bush wins a second term, the Clinton aura will be very faded by 2008. And, if by some weird chance Bush loses to a Howard Dean, she's going to have to hang around till 2012. Logic dictates that, if Hillary wants to be president, it's this year or none. In her reflexive attacks on Bush over the war and the blackout and everything else, she already sounds like a candidate. The press will lapse into its familiar poodle mode (''Do you think you've been attacked so harshly because our society still has difficulty accepting a strong, intelligent woman?'' etc.). And, more to the point, when the party's busting to hand you the nomination, you only get one opportunity to refuse.

I'm sure she takes the advice of Mark Steyn quite seriously.