`Baby' Hillary turns 1

`Baby' Hillary turns 1
REUTERS

If running for public office were a class in school, Hillary Rodham Clintonsays she would grade herself as ``making progress, needs improvement''.

In an interview with Reuters on Friday, one year to the day that shelaunched the informal start of her historic run for US Senate, the nation'sFirst Lady said the experience as the first President's wife to run foroffice was not quite what she expected.

``What surprised me was how hard it was for me to become a candidate,'' shesaid between campaign stops in upstate New York. ``To move from being anadvocate for somebody else to being a spokesperson for myself was a realtransition for me.

``I had to work on it and had to try to stop talking in volumes andparagraphs and instead in soundbites, which I still don't do very well soit's been a challenge.''

Compared to President Clinton, who has been called one of the greatestall-time political campaigners, Hillary on Friday called herself ``ababy''.

``I'm still in the toddler stage,'' she joked. But neither, she said in theinterview, did she try to take too many lessons from her husband.

``I am trying to do it my way,'' she said. ``We've seen the world in thesame way for so long that we do have the same attitudes toward politics andcampaigning ... but I'm just trying to find my own style and my own way ofcampaigning that is true to me and I can't really borrow from somebodyelse.''

After months of speculation, the First Lady launched her so-called listeningtour of New York on July 7, 1999, from a hayfield in the tiny town ofPindars Corners. In November, she announced her official candidacy and inFebruary, she was formally nominated the Democratic Party's Senatecandidate.

As she likes to put it, she's on her second opponent. The first, New YorkCity Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, pulled out of the running in May, citing hisnewly-diagnosed prostate cancer.

She now faces Republican Rick Lazio, a four-term member of the House ofRepresentatives who was, before now, little known outside his home turf ofsuburban Long Island, just east of New York City. Polls show the two lockedin a virtual tie.

As is the case with almost any political candidate, Clinton is greeted atcampaign stops by protesters and hecklers. But even when the Oppositionseems particularly hostile and mean-spirited, she insists it doesn't botherher.

``I've been down this road for so many years,'' she told reporters. ``Evenbefore I was married to Bill Clinton, people have had strong opinions aboutme. It hasn't changed ever since I was a little girl. I don't see itchanging anytime before the election.

``It is just part of the background music of my life,'' she said. Meetingvoters personally helps mute some of that sound, she said.

``It is an opportunity for people to see me, and not see me filtered throughother people's perceptions or their fund-raising letters and whatever it isthey say about me,'' she said.

Wearing two hats one as political candidate and one as the nation's FirstLady has been both a help and a hindrance, she said.

``It helped in some ways because certainly I'm well-known and people areexcited to see me and interested in what I have to say, and because ofsecurity concerns I've had to work really hard to make it absolutely clearthat I'm breaking through and trying to connect with people,'' she said.``It's probably a wash, I think,'' she said.

Clinton marked one year on the campaign trail with an early morning walkthrough downtown Ithaca, after which she hopped on the press bus, whichnormally follows her, for the first time ever. A late-morning rally inElmira was followed by a lunchtime speech in Corning and then alate-afternoon appearance in far western New York.

``It's a 24-hour-a-day job. It never ends and everything you do and say isput under a microscope, which is not the way most normal human beingslive,'' she said.