Hillary Rodham Clinton

BOSTON -- It's been almost a year since that well-known political pundit, Sharon Stone, explained why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton couldn't win the presidency. "A woman should be past her sexuality when she runs," intoned Ms. Stone. "Hillary still has sexual power, and I don't think people will accept that." I never figured out whether this was a compliment or an insult to the 59-year-old New York Democrat. Of course, this was only one of innumerable pink grids put over Senator Clinton's campaign.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking advice on "one of the most important issues" of her presidential campaign: picking a campaign theme song. More than 100,000 Americans have responded to her lighthearted call for help. Some have been inspired to compose original tunes. The reaction is another example of the Internet's growing role in politics. More than 500,000 people have watched Clinton's videotaped appeal on YouTube or her campaign Web site since the campaign posted it Wednesday.

The patron walks into a diner, ambles over to a booth, sits down and peruses the selections in a small jukebox at the table. A sullen man lingers nearby, his face vaguely menacing. Sound familiar? No, it's not Tony Soprano waiting for his dinner in the final, much-discussed scene of The Sopranos. It's Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a short movie unveiled yesterday on her campaign Web site. In the scene, a slightly awkward parody of the HBO series' denouement, the New York senator and Democratic presidential candidate is ostensibly picking a campaign theme song from among the choices in the jukebox when her husband, in an untucked shirt, joins her. The clip quickly landed on well-read blogs such as Gawker.

WASHINGTON -- It is becoming increasingly clear that Hillary Rodham Clinton is getting a lot of help from high places in her campaign to become a senator from New York. It is also becoming clear that she needs whatever help she can get.The decision by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to finance TV commercials promoting her candidacy is obviously indefensible on several counts.Mrs. Clinton is being given the kind of special treatment that other Democrats running for the Senate have every reason to resent.

Magazine makes list of top 10 toadiesCapital Style magazine has named its "Top 10 Toadies," the biggest posterior-kissers in Washington. Among the winners is presidential friend, corporate board member and "paragon of sucking-upward mobility" Vernon Jordan, cited for doing "anything to keep the directors' fees pouring in." Then there's Larry King, whose USA Today column is a "weekly cavalcade of wet smooches to friends."Geraldo Rivera is scored for his lack of credibility; and despite "two decades of doormat status," Hillary Rodham Clinton is described as "seeking votes in New York by suddenly praising retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, after systematically ignoring his expertise in health care and other areas."

WASHINGTON -- Struggling to regain credibility in the twilight of his presidency, Bill Clinton has proposed new tax breaks for long-term health care and the first real increase in defense spending since the Cold War, and will unveil an education initiative and a crime-control program this week.But Republicans and Democrats agree that a political atmosphere poisoned by the second presidential impeachment in history could doom the enactment of any new policy proposals, no matter how inexpensive or popular they are."

NEW YORK -- Hillary Rodham Clinton opened her remarks to a crowd of well-heeled Democrats at the Plaza Hotel yesterday with a coquettish hint about her much-rumored run for the Senate. Then she held her audience in suspense for a moment. Not even the silverware clanked.And then she confessed that she had no announcement at all.It was a flirtatious start to a speech that seemed to bat its eyes at a campaign in New York but make no commitment to it. Clinton, who surely knows by now that her every word will be turned inside out for clues to her political intentions, said she has begun to "think about the future in political terms" and believes that public service is a duty.

WASHINGTON -- At a swank Democratic fund-raiser this month, Ann W. Richards, the mischievous former governor of Texas, warmly welcomed Hillary Rodham Clinton as "the next junior senator from New York."Then, after a pregnant pause, Richards added, "and of course, her lovely husband, Bill."It was a brief glimpse at a state of affairs that, Mrs. Clinton herself acknowledged at that event, "just brings an enormous smile to my face": the perpetual-pol Bill Clinton as a second-fiddle political spouse.

IN THIS CORNER, fresh from successfully campaigning against former Sen. Al D'Amato on behalf of Rep. (now Sen.) Charles Schumer -- Hillary Rodham Clinton.And in the other corner, New York City's most popular mayor -- at least in suburbia. He's the fighting U.S. attorney; the snarling champion of civility -- Rudolph W. Giuliani, unbeaten at home.Mayor Giuliani, ineligible for re-election in 2001, has three fund-raising committees going full blast. President, vice president, governor, senator -- you name it, he's exploring it. Mr. Giuliani is not a lock to win the Republican nomination to succeed the retiring Democrat, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, but you would not want to be standing in his way.Enter Mrs. Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- As potential Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton narrows her house-hunting search to the tony New York City suburbs of Westchester County, the question of exactly which multimillion-dollar estate she will choose is upstaging another, equally crucial detail: How on earth will she pay for it?The Clintons, the presidential couple with the highest legal debts in history, initially took an interest in properties approaching $4 million, with horse pastures and winding private driveways that keep the riffraff away.

KENNETH BACON, 64 Noted Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon, a Pentagon spokesman in the Clinton administration who became a voice for millions of refugees uprooted by violence and conflict, died Saturday of skin cancer that had spread to his brain. He was 64. His death at his vacation home in Block Island, R.I., was announced by Refugees International, a Washington-based advocacy group that Bacon had led since 2001. "Most Americans remember Ken as the unflappable civilian voice of the Department of Defense," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.

SCRANTON, Pa. -- After six weeks of testy campaigning by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama for the affections of this working-class city that has seen better days, voters streamed to the polls yesterday. And if people such as Simon Lipchus were any indication, the television ads, interminable robocalls, bad bowling and whiskey sipping didn't make a whole lot of difference. Lipchus, the 64-year-old proprietor of Simon's Restaurant on Market Street, a little place with a screen door and great omelettes, knew more than a year ago that he would vote for Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- Should the next president sit down with the leaders of Iran, or North Korea, just to chat? Around that question revolves one of the few national security disagreements between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama as they struggle to define themselves in advance of Tuesday's Democratic primaries in Maryland and elsewhere. On other issues - the war in Iraq, nuclear proliferation, defense spending - it's difficult to see much daylight between the two. Both say they would, as president, accelerate the troop withdrawals from Iraq.

2008 will be remembered as a landmark year in American politics and a surprisingly interesting one for Maryland voters. Neither of the Democratic contenders is expected to lock up a nomination in Tuesday's super primary, and that makes Maryland's Feb. 12 contest relevant for the first time in a long time. National opinion polls show Hillary Rodham Clinton leading Barack Obama, but he's gained momentum since his victory in South Carolina. More important, many Democratic primaries award delegates based on share of the vote rather than winner-take-all.

At a briefing for conservative journalists before the State of the Union address, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten said President Bush isn't wistful about the close of his presidency and doesn't foresee a day when he will pine to be back in the Oval Office. Chuckles broke out in the room at the perhaps unintentional comparison to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's surrogate in chief, who - as with everything else in his life - has decided to make this election year all about him. This got me thinking.

LOS ANGELES -- Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama went head-to-head last night for the first time in a serious-minded debate but studiously steered clear of personal attacks. For more than 90 minutes, the finalists in the Democratic presidential contest unleashed their inner policy wonk as they argued dispassionately over their differences on health care coverage, the subprime mortgage crisis, immigration, going to war in Iraq and the pace of a U.S. withdrawal. Clinton was pressed by moderator Wolf Blitzer of CNN on whether she was wrong to have voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq in 2002, prompting a prolonged response that she had made a "reasoned judgment" and did not consider her position a vote to go to war. Obama responded by turning her answer against the main argument of her candidacy, that she has superior experience and qualifications for the job of commander in chief.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- He's scrapping with reporters. Pushing his wife's candidacy. Lashing out at her top rival in the Democratic presidential race. Former President Bill Clinton's recent aggressive tactics in the 2008 campaign have propelled him squarely to center stage - to the dismay of some prominent Democrats who fear he might be damaging the party's prospects for November. The vocal role he is carving out also might be a preview, should Hillary Rodham Clinton win in the fall, of how the White House would operate under the unprecedented scenario of a president being married to an ex-president.

WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. -- When Hillary Rodham Clinton started running for president, Wanjulia Ezekiel was thrilled. "I was looking forward to the advancement of a female," she said. But Sen. Barack Obama is getting her vote in this week's Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina. "He speaks to the possibility that I dreamed about as a child," explained the 40-year- old civil engineer from Columbia, the state capital. With Democrats on track to select either the party's first female or black presidential nominee, polls have suggested that black women such as Ezekiel are torn by conflicting loyalties to race and gender.

BOSTON -- Maybe I forgot to get my vaccination against the false-hope flu. Maybe the "change" mantra has finally overwhelmed my immune system. Or maybe it's just the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. hovering over this week. But I have a dream. Or at least a dream ticket. Why not the two front-runners on one ballot? Yes, I am aware that I must immediately hand over my press card to the professional cynic police. But the Democrats have just recovered from a panic attack over the possibility that a primary fight between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama over race and gender will leave both in the dirt.

The promise of "change" as an emerging catchphrase for the presidential campaign poses an interesting dilemma for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. For this voter, Mrs. Clinton's career as an adjunct to her husband doesn't inspire confidence that she would offer much different from the last round of Clintonism - no matter how hard she tries to get on the change bandwagon. Recall the phrase "two for the price of one" from 1992? It still applies. The affairs of Bill - Gennifer, Paula and, of course, Monica - are old news and need no rehashing.