WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, hyped Senator Clinton’s presidential prospects in an appearance with her yesterday, describing her as a role model for “young women who hope one day that they will have a spot on the ticket.”

Beside an uncomfortable-looking Mrs. Clinton at a DNC Women’s Leadership Forum luncheon, Dr. Dean recounted how, in the aftermath of his failed presidential bid last year, enthusiastic young supporters encouraged him to try again in 2008.

“I’m sure I shouldn’t tell this story,” Dr. Dean said, “because it gets a little political about 2008, which I’m not supposed to get, and I’m not getting involved in all that.

“I’m not running and I’m not on anybody’s side,” he continued. “But,” he said before a pregnant pause and knowing laughter, “after I did not win the primary,” he met with supporters about his political future.

“I said, ‘Look, there’s going to be a lot of people running in 2008, and one of them might be Hillary Clinton,'” Dr. Dean recalled. “Although we don’t know that, because she’s going to get elected to the Senate first, and she’s not even going to discuss this until – maybe she already discusses it – until she wins in 2006, and she will.”

Mrs. Clinton is up for re-election next year in New York and has not committed to serving a full term if she is voted back into office.

Dr. Dean identified Mrs. Clinton as New York’s “senior senator” before adding, “Chuck won’t like that,” in reference to New York’s Senator Schumer, who is the state’s senior senator in terms of length of service in the Senate.

Yesterday, Mrs. Clinton, for her part, appeared focused on her role as senator, in particular offering advice and consent on the judiciary.

Informing her audience that she had just come from voting “no” on the confirmation on the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts – a statement that met with enthusiastic cheers and applause – Mrs. Clinton expressed concern that the president’s nominee to fill the second vacancy on the court represented “an even more crucial vote,” insofar as the replacement for Justice O’Connor “can tilt the balance of the court and do so in a hurry.” Mrs. Clinton said she had advised the White House to appoint a nominee “who could get a near-unanimous vote” to bring “the kind of balance that the court desperately needs.”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton, who cut her remarks short before being whisked away to grill Secretary Rumsfeld an Armed Services Committee hearing, added to the Democratic drumbeat alleging Republican corruption and incompetence.

President Bush, she said, “tries to keep people afraid all the time” and is “shredding the social safety net… to prop up the privileged and knock the props out from everybody else.” She said the president was turning the deficit into “a ticking time bomb” and accused him “of starving FEMA, of stacking it with cronies.”

If Mrs. Clinton was Senate-minded yesterday, she also appeared focused on New York, praising Dr. Dean for his visit to the city, and for “fighting for our Democratic nominee for mayor, Freddy Ferrer.”

Dr. Dean, too, spent time yesterday abetting the campaign efforts of Mr. Ferrer, sending out a fundraising e-mail urging Democrats to “take back New York City” and lambasting Mayor Bloomberg for inviting the Republican National Convention to New York last year. Mr. Bloomberg also invited the Democrats to stage their convention in the city, but New York was turned down in favor of Boston.

In his comments at the lunch, Dr. Dean attacked Republicans for bringing what he called a “culture of corruption” to Washington. “It’s not just Tom DeLay that’s been indicted,” Dr. Dean said, citing the recent probe into Senator Frist, the majority leader of the Senate, for potential insider stock trading; investigations into who leaked the name of a CIA official, and the arrest last week of an administration official, David Safavian.