Posted on 10/24/2005 9:07:06 AM PDT by areafiftyone
ALBANY - Jeanine Pirro, the Republican prosecutor looking to challenge Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2006 bid for re-election, has a simple question for the former first lady: Just what are your intentions beyond next year? Thus far, Clinton has not ventured beyond her stock line that she is totally focused on winning re-election. Like any good prosecutor, Pirro, the Westchester County district attorney, knows that you don't ask a question unless you have a very, very good idea what the answer is. As far as Pirro is concerned, the answer is clear: Clinton is running for president in 2008 and wants to use her re-election race as a stepping stone to that. "When Hillary first came to New York and said she wanted to be a New Yorker, she asked us to put out a welcome mat and New York did," Pirro said Aug. 10 as she kicked off her announcement tour. "But now she wants to use New York as a doormat to the White House." Statewide polls show Clinton far ahead of Pirro, while national polls have the former first lady as the clear front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. While ambition is expected in politics, and is not necessarily considered a negative by voters - Democrat Mario Cuomo's popularity as New York governor was never higher than when speculation raged that he might run for president - Pirro's point is more precise. Noting that Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts missed almost all of the Senate's votes when he was the Democratic presidential standard-bearer in 2004, Pirro said recently that "the issues we face, the needs we have as a state, are too important to leave to a part-time senator." "I don't believe you can serve two masters," Pirro also said, noting she opted not to seek re-election as district attorney this year "knowing I would be running for statewide office right away." Critics have suggested Pirro may have had another more prosaic reason for not seeking re-election, a fear of losing. Her re-election win four years ago was narrow. In 2000, when Clinton was initially running for Senate in her newly adopted state, and critics were suggesting even then she was using the race to set herself up for a presidential run in 2004, she responded by pledging to serve her full six-year Senate term if elected. Clinton has, at least thus far, refused to renew that pledge. Her husband, the former president, has said she shouldn't make such a pledge again. New York polling isn't completely clear on how voters feel. In a late September poll, Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion asked voters if Clinton "should pledge to fulfill another six-year term and not run for president in 2008, or should she not make such a pledge?" Thirty-seven percent said she should make the pledge while 53 percent said she should not. In an early October poll, the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute asked voters: "If Hillary Clinton runs for re-election to the Senate in 2006, do you think she should pledge to serve the full six-year term or not?" Fifty-nine percent said she should make such a pledge under those circumstances while 30 percent said she should not. The different results can be explained in part by the different wording. The Quinnipiac poll keeps the presidential issue out of its question while the Marist poll links the two clearly together. At some point, Clinton may provide an answer of sorts for New Yorkers on the presidential question, beyond being completely focused on her re-election effort. It may be something as simple as saying she will take a look at it, if she is re-elected. Her husband has already said she will have a decision to make about running for president, if she wins in 2006. "But she's got to go through a big campaign," former President Clinton told NBC's "Meet the Press" recently. "And then she'll have a decision to make, like probably a dozen other Democrats will." New York voters deserve at least some sort of answer, according to Pirro. "Tell them the truth and they will reach their own conclusions, and some may decide that a part-time senator is OK by them," the Republican said last month.
Wasting your time asking Hitlery to say anything BELIEVABLE? Have you forgotten this is Hitlery CLINTON??
I have a simple question I still want John Kerry to answer: "Is it better that the North won the Vietnam war?". If he says yes, he has a lot of angry Vietnamese and Boat People who he will have to answer to. If he says "no" then one might ask him to admit that the VVAW was a bad idea that hurt our allies in the South, etc.
It's a great question that he got through all of 2004 without being asked. Forget about the boat service details. Your a politician now, and given 30 years perspective ... "Is it better that the North won?" Yes or No.
Get out there and counter every issue she brings up. Last week hillary was screaming/screeching telling NYers there was no anti-flu vaccine for them - that President Bush wanted NYer's to die.
I want to know if that is the truth - does NY have flu vaccine.
hillary clinton is so full of hate, everything she says is dripping in hate. It should not be hard to counter her.
Again - if hillary won't talk - then talk for her - the worst you can say will still be the truth.
It's call the MSM!!!!!
Have you ever seen in this "Two-Party Cartel" the pubbie faction doing anything like that? It's an unwritten rule. Liberals trash conservatves. Conservatives aren't allowed to fight back. If so, a true conservative agenda may flourish & none of these pols in this cartel are allowed for this to happen. H. Miers is an example of RINOism.
NOW? That's been her intent all along.
EXACTLY - we want to beat her first in 2006 on issues - then we will worry about 2008 later.
"Is that all you can do PIRRO?"
So it would appear. This is the ONLY thing she has said anything about. Oh, and to tighten the NY State sex offender laws, but that is still a local issue that she would not really be affecting if elected to the Senate.
She's annoying, she stays on message well, but she needs a platform with more than 1 or two planks.
Boy, this is a losing strategy. If this race is all about Clinton then that's basically a surrender. It puts Clinton in her comfort zone where she's the source of information, its content and its timing.
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