Free Republic

Will Hillary run? That depends on a bigger question: Can she win? In the next month, New York's junior senator will embark on the most monumental, emotional gut-check of her life - and weigh whether she thinks she can win the White House. Then, not too far into 2007, she will make her intentions known. "She has to wait until she's made a decision and it's a decision she's comfortable with," said Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who supports Clinton. Getting comfortable could be hard, and some of her closest political allies hope she resists the urge. But a lot has...

Hillary Meter Just 24% Consider Clinton Likely Candidate in 2008 November 6, 2006 In the most recent Rasmussen Hillary Meter survey, former First Lady Hillary Clinton has shifted three points to the left on the ideological continuum to 58 points left of the nation’s political center. Only twice in 2006 has she been seen so far to the left. In October of 2005, she was seen as 60 points to the left of the nation’s political center. More recently, she had moved somewhat to the right, settling at 50 a month ago, and 51 a month before that. The political...

Close friends of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton are always saying that she has a great sense of humor — witty, sarcastic, playful — and that skeptical voters would come around if they saw that part of her personality. Well, skeptical voters, take note: Mrs. Clinton has had some pretty amusing moments on the campaign trail this fall, wearing her personality on her sleeve more than she has in the past. This campaign season has been something of a dress rehearsal for Mrs. Clinton, as she considers auditioning for a bigger role in 2008. Her political issues, campaign advertisements and public...

As she prepares for her presidential race, confident that New Yorkers will re-elect her, Hillary Clinton is working to position herself properly to win the Democratic nomination by adjusting, tweaking and, where necessary, reversing her issue positions. But last week's flip-flop on gay marriage, in which she said she would approve of state action to legalize it, came with some reconstructed history that tried to paper over her switch by obfuscating the historical record. Her statement dismissed her support of her husband's Defense of Marriage Act as "a strategic decision to help derail a constitutional amendment that would have banned...

IN THE smoke-and-gilded-mirrors world of Bill and Hillary Clinton, nothing — not even birthday celebrations — are quite what they seem. The former President embarked last night on a three-day party to mark his 60th, which culminates in a live concert by the Rolling Stones in New York on Sunday. About 2,000 guests have been invited, including some of America’s wealthiest, with each expected to cough up between $60,000 (£32,000) and $500,000 to join in the fun. The money will go to the Clinton Foundation, which does global good works on issues such as HIV/Aids, climate change and childhood obesity....

In an appearance early Wednesday evening in front of roughly three-dozen LGBT leaders, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated that she would not oppose efforts by Eliot Spitzer, the odds-on favorite to become the new governor, to enact a same-sex marriage law in New York. She also suggested that language she used when she first ran for the Senate in 2000 explaining her opposition to marriage equality based on the institution's moral, religious, and traditional foundations had not reflected the "many long conversations" she's had since with "friends" and others, and that her advocacy on LGBT issues "has certainly evolved." On...

So what if Bill Clinton tied New York traffic in knots just over a month ago with the Clinton Global Initiative Conference? And who really cares that his real birthday was more than two months ago? Ready or not, he's back. This weekend, the former President will be dining and drinking to 60 years with some of world's deepest-pocketed donors at a series of glamorous events around Manhattan, beginning Friday evening and ending with a cocktail party on Gramercy Park in the wee hours Sunday night.

The two recent debates between Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Republican opponent, John Spencer, may have lacked fireworks. Yesterday, however, the race was set astir by remarks that Mr. Spencer reportedly made before the first debate — comments about Mrs. Clinton’s sexuality and physical appearance. . The columnist, Phil Reisman, said that he asked Mr. Spencer by telephone last week if he would use the debates to try to paint Mrs. Clinton as a liberal. “He said words to the effect of, ‘Well, you know me, words slip out, but I won’t call her a lesbian or anything,’ ”...

Hillary Clinton's Republican challenger is getting personal and it's not pretty: He says the senator used to be ugly - and speculates she got "millions of dollars" in plastic surgery. "You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," said John Spencer of Clinton's younger days. "I don't know why Bill married her," he said of the Clintons, who celebrated their 31st anniversary this month. Noting Hillary Clinton looks much different now, he chalked it up to "millions of dollars" of "work" - plastic surgery. "She looks good now," he said.

ROCHESTER, Oct. 20 — Facing a barrage of questions about her national ambitions during the first Senate debate on Friday night, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton firmly maintained that she was focused on her work in Congress and had made no decisions about running for president. But her Republican opponent seized on her aspirations at every opening, accusing her of already abdicating her responsibilities to New York. In a lively but cordial hour of exchanges, Mrs. Clinton steered toward substantive answers about foreign and domestic policy, and was sharply critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq. One...

Sen. Clinton says how Bush went wrong and offers her prescription for the war. Clinton met with the Daily News Editorial Board yesterday. These comments are excerpted from her remarks. "We have to deal with the Iraq we have, not the Iraq we wish we had. And the Iraq we have is a deteriorating, violent conflict that, if not technically a civil war, is about as close as you can get. Having been now on the Armed Services Committee for more than 3½ years, the uniformed military has tried to be respectful of the chain of command. They've been unwilling...

<p>FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ON NOT CAPTURING BIN LADEN: 'At least I tried. That's the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers. They ridicule me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed'...</p>

GOP Senate hopeful Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland said yesterday her father threatened her with a gun "on a couple of occasions" when she was a child - and wondered whether recent revelations about her past made it impossible for her to continue to run. McFarland said that news accounts about her upbringing, and how parental abuse may have contributed to her brother's death from AIDS in 1995, was "another form of abuse" - leaving her to wonder if she should abandon her quest to unseat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

FIXER-UPPER: Sen. Hillary Clinton is renovating her $4.2 million Washington, D.C., home and building an addition. WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is spending nearly $1 million on an expansion and renovation of her swank Washington mansion, as she prepares a fund-raising bonanza for her re-election campaign — and potential White House bid. The posh two-story brick pad, nestled next to the vice-presidential compound at the Naval Observatory, is already a fund-raising factory — and will soon boast a slew of new features to dazzle fat cats.