Amid Cheers for Clinton, Ire Over War

[papau]

PER ABCNOTE "And right on cue, Patrick D. Healy of the New York Times points to the crux of the Democratic dilemma by highlighting a new phenomenon dogging Senator Clinton: the small but angry group of moms and grandmas protesting her war stance outside last night's fundraiser in New York City starring her FPOTUS husband. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/nyregion/metrocampaigns/07clinton.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1133971956-wUHS503QfJ5U0E/XwUGKNw
Amid Cheers for Clinton, Ire Over War
By PATRICK D. HEALY
The thousands of Democrats snaking through Chelsea last night, waiting to enter a fund-raiser for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, represented a typical outpouring for the popular party leader. What was new, however, was the appearance of 75 antiwar activists nearby to heckle her on her position on Iraq.

Mrs. Clinton is such a political celebrity in the city that seeing her challenged so vigorously is a little new. But there it was, a predominantly female crowd of angry grandmothers and mothers who expressed concern that their relatives might end up fighting in Iraq or suffer retribution from terrorists at home.

Protesters were particularly exercised by a letter Mrs. Clinton sent to New Yorkers last week. In it she took responsibility for her vote to authorize military action and said Iraqis could not be abandoned by the United States, while also calling for a plan to start withdrawing some troops as early as next year.

Ann Roos, a member of Grandmothers Against the War and an Upper West Side resident, said she was disgusted by the letter.

"Hillary has no plan to withdraw the troops - we could be there for another 15 years under her," said Ms. Roos. "She'll never get my support again. I feel so let down by her taking a wishy-washy, all-things-to-all-people position."<snip>

Mr. Clinton enthusiastically praised his wife's work in the Senate on Sept. 11 aid and other issues important to New Yorkers, and also credited her with fighting for national concerns such as assisting the victims of Hurricane Katrina.<snip>
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For $50 a head last night at the Crobar in Chelsea more than 2000 people heard Bill Clinton rip into GOP leadership in Washington and make what the impatient could describe as the opening pitch for Sen. Clinton's 2008 appeal.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/59161.htm

BILL SETS STAGE FOR HILL'S RUN

By STEFAN C. FRIEDMAN
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December 7, 2005 -- Bill Clinton may have fired the opening salvo in his wife's 2008 presidential campaign last night when he answered a supporter's shouted question about whether Hillary would run for president with these words: "We'll get into that."
The former commander-in-chief's response punctuated a 10-minute speech that could have easily been on behalf of a presidential candidate rather than Sen. Hillary Clinton's re-election campaign.

Clinton ripped into the Republican leadership in Washington — though not by name — for everything from sending an Exxon executive to a global-warming<snip>