Washington – New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday launched a long- anticipated 2008 presidential campaign that could make her the first female president in the nation’s history and the only former first lady to follow her husband in the White House.
“I’m in, and I’m in to win,” Clinton said on her campaign website. She spent the day at her Washington home making calls to supporters, donors and friends.
Her announcement was deliberately timed to coincide with President Bush’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, campaign advisers said, so she can draw a contrast with the administration’s record and help focus attention on the office of the presidency.
Their hope, they said, is to establish Clinton as the candidate best prepared to become the first Democrat in the White House since Bush succeeded Bill Clinton six years ago.
“The stakes will be high when America chooses a new president in 2008,” she said in a statement posted on her website along with a video announcement. “As a senator, I will spend two years doing everything in my power to limit the damage George W. Bush can do. But only a new president will be able to undo Bush’s mistakes and restore our hope and optimism.”
According to a nationwide Washington Post-ABC News poll completed Friday night, Clinton begins the long campaign as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, which will culminate with the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August 2008. The poll showed her the favorite of 41 percent of Democrats, more than double the support of any of her potential rivals.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who established his exploratory committee last week, has generated enormous interest and attention, putting the Clinton camp on notice. The poll put him in second place among Democrats at 17 percent, but his support has not increased over the past month as he has moved toward a formal candidacy.
The poll, conducted by phone Tuesday through Friday, of 561 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents and 344 Republicans and Republican- leaning independents had an overall margin of error of 3 percentage points.
In her video statement, Clinton made only a glancing reference to the war in Iraq. She has emerged as a vocal critic of Bush and opposes his proposal to send more than 20,000 additional troops into the conflict. But she voted for the war in 2002 and angered some party anti-war activists by standing behind that vote until last month.
Clinton brings considerable assets to the race. As a former first lady now serving her second term in the Senate, she has one of the best-known names in American politics. She has a national network of supporters, the capacity to raise as much or more money than any of her rivals and a résumé of political activity dating back decades that now includes six years in the Senate and a landslide re-election victory.
And for the past 15 years, she has shown an ability to weather sometimes harsh attacks from her critics, especially among conservatives.
But those considerable assets have done nothing to ward off a sizable cadre of rivals. That group includes, in addition to Obama, former Sen. John Edwards, Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson plans to declare his intentions today, and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden has said he will be a candidate.
The size and experience of the Democratic field underscores the reality that, for all of her support, fundraising potential and political muscle, Clinton faces questions about whether she can win a general election.
The electability issue comes in different forms. Will she suffer from a sense of Clinton fatigue on the part of many voters, who may be looking for the kind of fresh face Obama offers? Is she too defined as a partisan Democrat to fit the mood of an electorate that may be hungry for a different style of politics after eight years of the Clinton presidency and six years of Bush? Have the attacks against her as cold and calculating created an image that will be difficult to overcome?
Many Democrats say she will have to work to overcome skepticism about her candidacy inside the party.
“Can they (voters) finally see the reality of Hillary Clinton, not the myth of Hillary Clinton?” said Mickey Kantor, who was commerce secretary in the Clinton administration and supports the senator’s candidacy. “The money will be there. … The experienced people will be there. All those things she will have. But the image (is something) she will have to turn around in some parts of the country.”
Campaign officials believe the potential for making history as the nation’s first female president will give the campaign added energy, a talking point emphasized in a memo sent to supporters Saturday.
“In particular, younger generation women believe it’s time we had our first woman president and believe Hillary is the right choice,” the memo said.
Meanwhile Saturday, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican, also jumped into the presidential race.
“My family and I are taking the first steps on the yellow brick road to the White House,” the two-term senator told supporters, vowing to fight for cultural and family values.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
