Clinton Opens State Campaign With Salvos at White House
New York Times
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
Published: June 1, 2006
BUFFALO, May 31 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton formally opened her Senate re-election campaign on Wednesday with a call to "take our country back" from the current Republican leadership, cataloging what she called the Bush administration's failures in a marquee appearance at the state Democratic convention that signaled how she might approach a presidential campaign.

Mrs. Clinton, virtually unchallenged within the party for her seat, accepted the nomination by first showing an 18-minute biographical film contending that as a senator, she has converted former skeptics into supporters. But in remarks that followed, Mrs. Clinton, who aides say is still deciding whether to run for president in 2008, quickly broadened her message into an argument for new leadership at the national level.

"I believe that we need a fundamentally new direction," Mrs. Clinton told several hundred convention delegates, who unanimously chose her as the party's Senate candidate.

"We are better than what is happening in America today," Mrs. Clinton continued.

She added that events like Hurricane Katrina's aftermath "show what happens when our leaders are not paying attention, when they're not making decisions based on the facts on the ground, when they just think they can get away with saying, 'You're doing a heck of a job.' " Her allusion was to President Bush's assessment of Michael D. Brown, who was the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time of the hurricane..

Mrs. Clinton mentioned the war in Iraq — a contentious undercurrent throughout the Democratic gathering — just once. Rather than defend her decision to vote for authorizing the war, as she sometimes has in the past, Mrs. Clinton emphasized the need to rely on Iraqi security forces so American troops can come home.

Her comments came as the convention passed a resolution urging a troop withdrawal at the earliest practical date and as an antiwar activist, Jonathan Tasini, said he would seek the 15,000 signatures needed to enter a primary against Mrs. Clinton in September.

Heading into this election, Mrs. Clinton faces a divided Republican Party, whose delegates — holding their own convention Wednesday on Long Island — split their support between two candidates to challenge Mrs. Clinton, paving the way for a potentially bruising primary.

Mrs. Clinton's convention appearance, while predictable in political terms, held important symbolic meaning: Her advisers hope that a strong showing in New York, particularly in Republican upstate areas, will convince Democrats nationwide that she holds bipartisan appeal. In many ways her re-election campaign will be about beating expectations, or at least surpassing the 55 percent of the electorate she won in 2000.

That much was reflected in the biographical film that opened the event: Produced by the longtime Clinton media adviser Mandy Grunwald, it wove a narrative of Mrs. Clinton's short political life, starting with President Bush's prediction in July 2000 that her Republican opponent would win.

From there, it told of a larger-than-life senator (her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is among those interviewed) who has nonetheless paid attention to small, human tasks (like comforting an amazed Sept. 11 survivor in her hospital bed) and diligently worked across the aisle to get things done (another testimonial is from Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Maguire, the former adjutant general of New York and an ally of Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican).

Still, it was Mrs. Clinton's speech after the film that captured her current political thinking and was sure to be interpreted in the context of speculation that she will run for president in the next campaign.

Iraq has been a vexing issue for Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats who voted for what has become an increasingly unpopular war. In her speech, Mrs. Clinton attacked the Bush administration for its "wrongheaded, short-sighted foreign policies" and made a pointed comment on the president's handling of the war.

"Stand with me as we push the Bush administration to take responsibility for the mistakes and misjudgments that they have made around the world," she said. "And stand with me as we put pressure on both the administration and the new Iraqi government to get behind a real plan for the Iraqis to assume a growing responsibility for their own security and safety, so that we can begin to bring our troops home."

Mr. Tasini, a former union official who acknowledged that his real purpose at the convention was to spur a debate on Iraq rather than to defeat Mrs. Clinton, said he was unsatisfied by her remarks about the war. "I don't think that's dramatically different than the administration's position," he said.

At times, Mrs. Clinton sounded determined to distinguish her views more forcefully. She repeated "I believe" at least a half-dozen times. "I believe in the chance for every person to pursue his or her dreams," she said. "I believe in the dignity of work that is fairly compensated."

At another point, she said: "I believe in a government that makes decisions based on facts — and, sadly, that seems to be an unusual idea in Washington these days."

Later, she repeated "Stand with me," or "Stand against" or "Stand up for" over and over. It was a rhetorical device that seemed destined for the campaign trail and was, her aides said, reminiscent of language she used in 2000.

She drew strong, if not passionate, applause from a crowd that chanted "Hil-la-ry" when she arrived. Her husband sat up front, watching her with a smile. When she pointed him out, praising him as an inspiration and a mentor, a friend and a partner, the audience cheered and rose for a standing ovation. Mr. Clinton joined her onstage for an embrace at the end, before the obligatory balloon drop that signaled a campaign under way. (Their daughter, Chelsea, had hoped to attend but was kept away by work, a Clinton official said.)

Dressed in an electric-blue pants suit, Mrs. Clinton stood out against the backdrop of the other New York Democrats nominated during the convention, some of whom seemed aware they were in the shadow of her celebrity. Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi joked during his uncontested nomination that he was "one of the opening acts"; Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, alongside Mrs. Clinton as she was mobbed by supporters after a breakfast, eventually wandered away from the preoccupied crowd.

Only Mr. Clinton could keep up: Even after Mrs. Clinton had fled the hotel ballroom, he lingered in a throng of reporters to answer questions, mostly about his wife. When aides tried to end the session, he kept talking, until finally, perhaps realizing he was the only politician left in the room, he turned to go.