WASHINGTON – Elizabeth Warren and Deval Patrick make almost any short list of leading lights of the Democratic Party. But they didn’t make one very long list compiled by the party’s biggest star: None of the 635 pages in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new book — in essence the platform for the next presidential campaign — mentions the two leading politicians from Massachusetts.
In what has become a Washington ritual, politicians and their consultants on Tuesday began at the end of Clinton’s book, “Hard Choices,” thumbing through the index for even the briefest mention of their name. But for those in the Hub of the Universe, there is no need: You’re almost certainly not in there.
Boston prides itself on two things: political relevance and parochialism. The book is another sign that provincialism is all we have left.
“Apparently GEORGE McGovern gets a few mentions,” Michael Mershon, a spokesman for Representative Jim McGovern, the Worcester Democrat, quipped in an e-mail. “So that’s pretty close.”
It’s a book filled with name-dropping. There’s “my good friend Leon Panetta,” then “my good friend Senator Dianne Feinstein.” Oh, and don’t forget “my dear friend Stephanie Tubbs Jones” or “our old friend Tony Blair.”
“Madeleine Albright was my longtime friend,” she writes. But in case there’s any doubt, given how many friends are named in the book, Clinton writes, “My husband is my best friend.”
Apparently, she has few “dear friends’’ in Massachusetts.
Clinton references Mitt Romney twice, but neither time is particularly insightful (once was only to note that he worked for a time at Boston Consulting Group with future Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu). She mentions the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, but only to note that he was part of a bitter Democratic presidential primary in 1980 (the passage leaves out that Kennedy was also part of a bitter Democratic presidential primary in 2008 — and he endorsed Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama).
Clinton mentions Ed Markey once in passing, referencing that the Massachusetts senator helped pass a climate bill in the House, but doesn’t name former Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino or anyone else in the Massachusetts delegation.
Patrick and Warren, the two leading left-out Bay Staters, both wrote books that mentioned Clinton. But they were gracious about her lack of reciprocity.
“The governor wishes Secretary Clinton well with her new book,” said Jesse Mermell, a spokeswoman for Patrick.
“Senator Warren didn’t get an advanced copy, but she’s looking forward to getting the book and reading it,” said Lacey Rose, a spokeswoman for Warren.
Clinton does name her successor, John Kerry, 21 times in the book. But none of the moments are particularly revealing. She writes that one of her last acts in office was to sit down and write a letter to Kerry, which she put in the same place that Condoleezza Rice left a note for her. She doesn’t reveal the contents of the note, and Kerry aides wouldn’t either. (Perhaps it will be in Kerry’s book).
She also writes of a moment in 2009 when she and then-US Senator Kerry were negotiating with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai — Kerry in person, and Clinton on the phone from the State Department. At one point, Clinton asked Kerry to stay in Kabul a little longer.
Kerry said he would, but asked her to call Senate majority leader Harry Reid and request that no votes be taken until Kerry returned. Reid agreed to a “one-day grace period but said he needed Kerry back quickly,” Clinton writes.
Kerry aides said he hasn’t seen the book, and did not get an advance copy, and has only read about it through media reports.
For weeks, Clinton’s book has been one of the most talked-about topics.
But the talk is more about the fact that she has a book (and a book tour, and a bus of supporters trailing the tour, and a half-dozen television interviews promoting it) than about what’s in the book itself.
As she launched the tour on Tuesday at the Barnes & Noble in Manhattan’s Union Square — the same spot where Warren launched her book tour seven weeks ago — there was breathless coverage of the first man waiting in line (he started waiting at 2:30 p.m. Monday). There was glowing coverage and critical coverage. And there was coverage criticizing the coverage.
It was all just a taste of what’s to come.
“Will I run for president in 2016?” Clinton asks toward the end of her book. “The answer is, I haven’t decided yet.”
Related coverge:
• Evan Horowitz: How books help a candidate
• 6/6: Is Mass. about to have a political drought?
• Hillary Clinton defends remarks about being ‘dead broke’
• Hillary Clinton confronts GOP critics
• Hillary Clinton to stop at Harvard Book Store
Matt Viser can be reached at matt.viser@globe.com.