These things happen quietly, subtly, without pronouncements, sometimes without anyone ever noticing they are occurring. But often – not always, mind you – one candidate surges to such an advantageous position in the fight for a presidential nomination that the contender suddenly becomes the front-runner. It just happened.

It’s not quite clear what celestial or temporal event prompted it. No one took a straw vote (the Republicans did that, and they still have no front-runner), and no one caucused. It’s not a mainstream media conspiracy, either. It’s just a discernible adjustment in the political climate. But find me someone who thinks, deep in his or her heart, that Hillary Clinton isn’t in the strongest position right now in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

This isn’t a matter of survey data, or a question of money raised, or crowds roused, or debate questions parried, or bumper stickers distributed, or editorials drafted or e-mails forwarded. It’s more a question of sitting here in September and thinking of the role of Mr. October or, to put it more plainly, to see who is playing the role of Reggie Jackson, who once was quoted in Sport magazine as saying he was the straw that stirred the drink of the New York Yankees.

When it comes to the 2008 race, Sen. Clinton, who seldom gives a speech that can be described as stirring, is doing a lot of stirring nonetheless. To change the sports metaphor: “She has played above the rim without a mistake,” says a top New Hampshire Republican.

In some ways this presidential campaign, so different from its predecessors in so many ways, is nevertheless so much the same as some of the ones that preceded it. In 1984, for example, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale was the front-runner, followed by Sen. John H. Glenn Jr. and Sen. Gary W. Hart. Senators Glenn and Hart sought to diminish their rival by declaring him the tool of the special interests and unions that bankrolled him. Hart, who had more of an insurgent’s profile than Glenn, sought to stay close to Mondale in the polls so as to be well-positioned if he stumbled.

Those are the relative positions Sen. Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have fallen into in recent weeks. We don’t have the advantage of knowing who won Iowa (Mondale did in 1984) or New Hampshire (Hart), but we do know that Clinton possesses some classic front-runner attributes. They are:

¢ Everything bad that there is to be said about her already has been said, maybe a hundred times. Is there a soul alive who has not heard about her marriage, her disastrous effort at overhauling the health-care system, her transformation from Goldwater Girl to Wellesley activist, her role in the Rose Law Firm, her miraculous success in the commodity futures market, her real-estate forays at Whitewater? No matter what the subject, she and her stone-wall defenders can dismiss it with a yawn and the two most beguiling words in the political lexicon: old news.

¢ She’s battle-tested. Is there a media focus harder to handle than the one that was thrown at the woman whose husband’s extramarital adventures were the subject of an independent counsel’s investigation known throughout the world? Few presidential candidates are confronted with tests of poise, composure, character and courage remotely as formidable as what she went through in 1998.

¢ She’s disciplined. This was Mondale’s great strength, and his great weakness. Like Mondale, who seldom strayed off his text, schedule or agenda, Sen. Clinton has an iron will. Mr. Mondale made a giant strategic miscalculation – that winning the 1984 nomination with 1948 tactics, emphasizing union bosses and county chairmen, was the way to go – but he made no tactical errors as he sought the nomination nearly a quarter-century ago. He never said anything stupid or frivolous or, come to think of it, even controversial. He was one of the most relaxed, most engaging men of his political generation, but there wasn’t a touch of informality to his campaign.

All of this gets to the difficulty Sen. Obama faces, along with the usual hurdles of running a national campaign, raising zillions of dollars, taking positions and positioning himself to appeal to a primary electorate. He’s increasingly dependent upon slips by his rival. But the lady, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher in 1980, is not for slipping.

Which is not to say that the Democratic campaign is over. It’s not. One front-runner, Sen. Edmund S. Muskie of Maine, who in some ways was in a stronger position in 1971 than Sen. Clinton is in 2007, slipped terribly and then nearly slipped from view, resurfacing briefly as secretary of state in the Carter years.

Sen. Clinton still has challenges ahead. She still must battle a public storyline (that she is a hard-bitten, cold, calculating careerist with a lust for power) that has not entirely disappeared. But she is taking that on and, ironically, even though she is one of the big-money candidates, she is using the small-money settings of Iowa and New Hampshire to soften her edges and boost her human appeal.

The Republicans are still saying that Sen. Clinton is the candidate they most want to oppose next November. That’s easy to say in September 2007. But a Clinton who negotiates all the difficulties of the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination minefield is a Clinton who could be even more formidable than the one they see on the hustings right now. The same could be said of the Republican front-runner, if there ever is one.