Remember Susan Ness?

She was a Clinton-appointed FCC commissioner who served between 1994 and 2001.

Well, you may be seeing a lot more of her. If Hillary Clinton wins the White House next year—still a big “if” despite her front-runner status today—Ness is likely to return to the commission as chairman.

Ness has strong personal ties to Sen. Clinton that stretch back to her days as a campaign worker and fundraiser for President Bill Clinton, who rewarded her with the FCC appointment in 1994.

This time around, Ness has been actively campaigning for Hillary. More important, she is an official “HillRaiser”—a supporter who has bundled at least $100,000 for the campaign.

This is Ness's third bid to become the FCC's first woman chairman. She had hoped to succeed Clinton-appointed Chairman Reed Hundt after his tumultuous four years in 1997, but was beaten out for the job by then FCC General Counsel Bill Kennard.

In 2004, Ness plunged into the Kerry campaign as a major fundraiser, hoping again to earn the FCC top job. But Ohio went to Bush.

Even if, as many believe, 2008 is the Democrat's year, it may not be Hillary's.

One of the other Democratic candidates, Barack Obama or John Edwards, could slip past Clinton and capture the nomination.

As TVNEWSDAY reported last June, Obama is being backed by the old Hundt-Kennard gang that ran the FCC during the Bill Clinton years.

Leading the telecom wing of the Obama campaign is Julius Genachowski, a former top aide to Chairmen Hundt and Kennard. He has been a friend of Obama's since Harvard Law School and is now a major fundraiser. He introduced Obama to Hundt and Kennard.

A former top executive at Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive Corp., Genachowski is now managing director of Rock Creek Ventures, an investment firm focusing on digital media and commerce, and special adviser to General Atlantic, a private equity fund.

Genachowski's experience and efforts on behalf of Obama would certainly qualify him for the top FCC job, although it's unclear whether he wants it. He also may be aiming for an even more prominent role in an Obama administration.

Others in the Obama sphere that could be considered for the FCC:

• Blair Levin, who served as Hundt's chief of staff and is a telecommunications analyst with Stifel Nicolaus.
  
  
• Karen Kornbluh, a policy director on Obama's Senate staff who served under Hundt and Kennard.
  
  
• Donald Gipps, another FCC veteran and former chief domestic policy adviser to former Vice President Al Gore. Gipps is currently group vice president for corporate strategy at Level 3, which operates one of the world's largest Internet backbones.

So far, no one with similar credentials or with FCC ambitions has surfaced in the Edwards campaign.

Either President Edwards or President Obama might also promote one of the two current Democratic Commissioners, Michael Copps or Jonathan Adelstein, into the top job.

Both have strong Hill ties, and Copps, through his vigorous campaigning against media consolidation, may now have a higher public profile than does Chairman Kevin Martin.

Just this Monday, Copps was the subject of a major profile in the Los Angeles Times in which he is described as “more proselytizer than pencil pusher” and the first “FCC commissioner-rock star.”

At the very least, as the Times pointed out, Copps might wind up as an interim chairman in 2009 between the times the Republican chairman steps down and a new permanent chairman is nominated and confirmed.

For broadcasters, Copps is the worst-case scenario. Not only is he opposed to further relaxation of ownership restriction, he believes strongly that TV and radio stations should pay for their spectrum by adhering to concrete public interest obligations.

In contrast, Ness, the one most likely to be the new permanent chairman, is viewed as a moderate by broadcasters and as someone with whom they can work. “She knows the issues and she's very bright,” says one observer.

The negatives that come up are an inability to sell policy and a labored, methodical approach to decision making. “She'd be boring, but she'd be good,” says one TV industry source.

During her days at the FCC, Ness usually voted with her Democratic Chairmen, Reed Hundt or Bill Kennard, but would make them earn her vote and impress her thinking on the final items.

Says one broadcast representative: She was “reasonable and approachable. She wasn't a hard and fast ideologue. She carried the water on kidvid but not to the extent that a flamer like [former FCC Commissioner] Gloria Tristani did.”

She also gets high marks for her efforts in working out a compromise between industry groups over DTV standards.

And broadcasters like the fact that she has “practical real-world experience” in business.

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