Posted on 08/31/2006 4:03:50 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
Aug 31 2:35 PM US/Eastern
By MARC HUMBERT Associated Press Writer
SENECA FALLS, N.Y.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, standing outside an abandoned knitting mill that will become the new home of the National Women's Hall of Fame, said Thursday she hopes America is ready for its first woman president. "It just depends on when and if that happens," the former first lady said. "Stay tuned."
Clinton continued to duck questions about whether she will run for the White House in 2008, saying yet again she is completely focused on her re-election this year.
But Clinton said that when it comes to a woman holding what she called "the toughest job in the world, some day it will happen."
Clinton was on the campaign trail Thursday reaching out to women _ a core group of supporters _ in her front-running bid for a second Senate term, a race many see as a prelude to a run for president in two years.
Recent polls have shown Clinton far ahead of her rivals in the New York race, and with a distinct advantage among female voters.
A poll released last week by Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute found the job approval rating for the state's junior senator at 58 percent _ 53 percent among male voters and 63 percent among women.
But even some women who support Clinton's re-election this year aren't certain she should run for the White House in 2008, in large part because she is a woman.
Valerie Brechko, an elementary school teacher from Penn Yan, said Wednesday during a Clinton campaign stop that while she is a strong Clinton supporter, she doesn't want her to run in 2008 because she can't win.
"I don't feel that our country is willing or ready to vote a woman into that office," Brechko said. "I hate to say it _ I'm definitely a women's libber _ but they're just not ready."
Clinton faces a Sept. 12 primary against anti-Iraq war activist Jonathan Tasini. Former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer and Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland are vying for the Republican Senate nomination.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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I will never understand why so many people here have such a hard on for Rice. Personally, she would be one of the last people I would vote for.
Amazing. Her husband soiled our country and some would look past that and hire his sidekick, the lesbo deathcamp commandant!
Do we really want Hillary's hand on the Nuclear ash tray?
Reno's running?
Hitlery would make Stalin look tame if she could get away with it. And I mean that with all my heart.
Other nations, especially during these WOT times, might feel more comfortable dealing with a male than a female.
Hillary especially projects a caring only about her own party and agenda and not about what is best for our country, and would put her own people in there like she fired the travel staff.
Bush seemed to put his own people in there, too, but not rock the boat too much by keeping people from the old guard and look where it got him.
The first woman president, as well as the first black president, will be Republican. Democrat women and minorities are far to radically leftwing to be electable. Only right or right-center women and minorities (i.e., those in the Republican Party) stand a change of getting elected.
Hey Hillary! Release your college disertation!
Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi just to name a few. These women had integrity, strength, ethics and could answer a question.
And they were WOMEN, not lesbian evil pretend-wives!
I agree that America IS ready for a woman president -- Condi Rice.
I'd vote for her, but she won't run.
Da da da dum, Captain Obvious To The Rescue!
Boy do you have that right!!!!
Condi doesn't want to be President. She wants to be Commissioner of the NFL.
Rice says she's not interested, but if she changes her mind, she's got my vote.
Really, there is only one Repub that I would refuse to vote for. Not many of the names being kicked around right now particularly enthuse me, but when you consider the consequences of a Dem in power, they all (with only the one exception) look like giants among men.
I have worried that a Hillary running with, say, Obama, would be tough for the Repubs to beat. She would definitely energize the Repub base, but she and Obama would be appealing to the Oprah-watchers out there in Oprah-land, which is the big brain-dead-middle-ground both parties try to woo, and neither party can win without.
The Repubs won't beat her if they put up a milquetoast who tries to blur the differences between the parties. They need to go bold. Go bold, and we have a chance. Go soft and she will eat our lunch, and keep eating it for the next 4 years.
I say four years, because while I think she could win, I don't think she could get re-elected, she might even be forced out in her first term of office. But I don't want to see the damage her presidency would do to this country if she were elected, or the chaos that would result in her forced resignation.
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