Democratic leaders in the Senate are prepared to give Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton a still-undefined leadership role there if she does not become Barack Obama's secretary of state, Democratic officials close to the situation said.

The discussions about an enhanced position for Clinton are factoring into her deliberations over joining the cabinet, the officials said Thursday. Clinton, the junior senator from New York, is wrestling with whether to become the nation's top diplomat or to remain in a chamber where lack of seniority limits her influence.

Clinton asked to join the Senate Democratic leadership after the Nov. 4 election, and party leaders began trying to figure out a way to accommodate her without dislodging any of the current leaders, Democratic officials said. The conversations, they added, preceded Obama's approach to her about becoming secretary of state and are on the table if she turns down the job.

Although advisers to Obama have said he has not made a formal offer, most Democrats believe the decision is hers to make, and friends said Thursday that she was wavering.

At the end of a confused day in which even Obama's advisers seemed unsure what was happening, a transition official said Thursday night that the president-elect's team believed things were on track with Clinton and that her nomination could be announced next week.

The uncertainty, a week after Obama met with Clinton to discuss the idea of her leading the State Department, kept Washington spinning in feverish speculation about whether the two former rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination would team up. Clinton was keeping counsel only with a tight circle of confidants, leaving even prominent veterans of the Clinton political operation guessing as to her intentions.

But driving her consideration, friends said, is a sense of disenchantment with the Senate, where despite her stature she remains low in the ranks of seniority that governs the body. She was particularly upset, they said, at the reception she felt she received when she returned from the campaign after collecting 18 million votes and almost becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party.

"Her experience in the Senate with some of her colleagues has not been the easiest time for her," said one longtime friend who insisted on anonymity in exchange for sharing Clinton's sentiments. "She's still a very junior senator. She doesn't have a committee. And she's had some disappointing times with her colleagues."

In particular, the friend said, Clinton was upset when the leadership rejected the possibility of her heading a special new task force with a staff and a mandate to develop legislation expanding health care coverage.

In dismissing the idea, Senate leaders noted that Senator Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the health committee, planned to play the leading role in shaping a plan for universal coverage even as he battles brain cancer. In the current Congress, Clinton is eighth in seniority among the Democrats on Kennedy's committee.

Other Democratic officials said Clinton had then wanted to serve in a broader leadership role, perhaps as chairwoman of the Democratic Policy Committee, a sort of internal "think tank" with a staff, a budget and office space. But the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, refused to give her that post, because he did not want to force out the current chairman, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the officials said.

Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Clinton, said it was "nothing but poppycock" to suggest that she had wanted to push Dorgan aside. Reines scoffed at the notion that his boss was disaffected. "As her colleagues on both sides of the aisle will tell you," he said, "Senator Clinton doesn't get disappointed. She gets to work."

Senate Democrats gathered Tuesday to re-elect their leadership, including Dorgan, without offering any of the top slots to Clinton.

But Reid told those at the closed-door meeting that he was looking for a way to create a new leadership role for her, two people who were in the room said.

Reid wants to come up with some sort of leadership position to recognize Clinton's standing as one of the party's most popular figures, and aides said he was confident that he could arrive at something with sufficient muscle to appeal to her.

Democratic officials said Clinton had not tried to use the Obama discussions to gain leverage with the Senate leadership. "The fact is that this is something that the leadership has been working on for a few weeks now," a senior Senate aide said.

By Peter Baker and Helene Cooper, International Herald Tribune, November 21, 2008