Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's Senate office is not confirming that she is taking the secretary of state job, though they are adopting affirmative language on the record now, quibbling, lightly, only with the timing of the report.

"We’re still in discussions, which are very much on track. Any reports beyond that are premature," wrote Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Clinton in an email.

Jennifer 8. Lee noted today that a number of Hillary Clinton's would-be successors were in one place this week when Governor David Paterson visited the New York congressional delegation in Washington D.C.  read more »

Jordan Thomas, the founder of Brooklyn for Barack, was flying home last week from Denver, where he was a field organizer, when a question popped into his head.

Could he still organize people in time for the mayor’s race, and do it without using Obama’s name?  read more »

If you are bewildered by the labyrinth of a public storyline about Hillary Clinton's potentialpossiblemaybe appointment to serve as Barack Obama's secretary of state, you're not alone.

Apparently, most people in Hillaryland have no clue what's going on either.

A former adviser to Hillary, speaking on background, told me of receiving calls in the last couple of days from people close to the Clintons claiming that Hillary's acceptance of Obama's secretary of state offer was "a done deal," that Hillary had been offered the job but was sure to decline it and that the job had actually never been offered at all. These contradictory accounts, the former adviser said, were made with "absolute authority.  read more »

Bill Clinton said he'd do "whatever they want" with respect to the vetting process and information he'd have to disclose to the Obama administration to help Hillary Clinton become Obama's secretary of state.  read more »

After a ceremony in Astoria this morning to rename the Triborough Bridge after Robert F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy Jr. said that he'd consider joining the Obama administration, and would "look at" replacing Hillary Clinton in the Senate if she leaves for a secretary of state position.

"You know what?  read more »

At the Moth Ball on Tuesday, Nov. 18, Salman Rushdie was awarded the 2008 Moth Award for his storytelling abilities and everyone wore silly hats in the tradition of the whimsical literary organization. But the cocktail chatter centered around the question of: Was she or wasn't she? 

"Well, has she been yet?" Mr. Rushdie asked when the Daily Transom inquired what he thought about Barack Obama offering the Secretary of State job to Hillary Clinton. "I have no idea. But I think it's very interesting that he's looking for ways to involve his former rivals and create that kind of unity. In that sense, it's good. But until I know it's real, I can't really say."  read more »

Felix Gillette looks at CNN, which might want to rename itself The Corpulent News Network.

How did the story of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State appointee begin? John Koblin traces the story as it made its way from NBC's Andrea Mitchell to every other media outlet imaginable. "It has unspooled in a confusing way," Politico reporter Ben Smith says.

Leon Neyfakh meets Carrie Kania, the publisher at Harper Perennial, "the small but proud paperback unit of HarperCollins that she has lovingly presided over since the fall of 2005."

Plus: Candy Pratts Price... Big Shake-Up at New York Tech Meetup... Malcolm Gladwell.

"We're having a lot more fun than we did on Liberty Island!" said Tina Brown, the czarina of The Daily Beast, at her Web site's launch party last night in the Meatpacking District.

No, it didn't quite have the extravagance, say, of that 1999 Talk launch party on Liberty Island, where more than 800 movie stars and celebrities—invites went out to everyone from Henry Kissinger to Madonna—mingled and got drunk in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.

Well, those were different times.

Ms. Brown's launch party last night was at... Pop Burger on Ninth Avenue. Maybe this is the New Media reality.

At this party, Harvey Weinstein didn't make the guest list, but "Fast Eddie" Felsenthal, the executive editor of The Daily Beast, sure did (and that was his nickname at The Wall Street Journal, we're told!). And instead of nearly a thousand arriving by ferry, this one had a few dozen people who had to take the ACE or the L. Everyone went home by a quarter to nine.

There were free sliders.  read more »

Andrea Mitchell started it.

It was she who told viewers of NBC’s The Nightly News With Brian Williams on Thursday, Nov. 13, that Hillary Clinton “is under consideration to be secretary of state.”

Since then, nobody seems to have known what to think. But that hasn’t ground the Madame Secretary boomlet to a halt—on the contrary, it only accelerated it! Over the past few days, we’ve heard: Hillary is under consideration for the job. She’s been offered the job! She hasn’t been offered the job (which was only news because someone else had said she had).

Last night, we read that she had been offered the job, and not only that, she was going to accept it! More recently, it’s been “unclear,” but her husband is being vetted—that’s the news of the day for Nov.  read more »

Why, if you’re Barack Obama, would you choose Hillary Clinton to be your secretary of state?

Yes, since it was first reported last week that the two had met to discuss the possibility, there has been no shortage of theories in the press: He wants her out of the Senate and into a pliant administration post; he’s paying her back for conceding graciously and then campaigning for him; he wants to score points with women voters.

But if you ask some of the most prominent members of the Democratic foreign policy establishment, the consensus about her appeal as a potential secretary of state is much simpler: She’ll deliver.  read more »

The search for real news on the Hillary Clinton-Secretary of State front continues:

A source familiar with Clinton's thinking told me that Obama did indeed offer the job to her and that she was weighing the decision with her husband, who returned home on November 17 from a speaking engagement in Kuwait. But, the source said, reports that she had decided to accept the position were premature and wrong.

According to the source, the Obama transition team and Clinton team were, as of this afternoon, still "working through" the parameters of Bill Clinton's charitable activities.

"She is still weighing it," said another source, a close associate of Hillary Clinton, who added that the sticking point of the negotiations was not Bill's willingness to be vetted, which the source said had been overblown in importance, but rather "a question of whether she wants to give up her Senate seat.  read more »

All indications are that Barack Obama wants Hillary Clinton to serve as his secretary of state and that, pending some touchy but not overly problematic haggling over the finances of her husband’s foundation, he will soon formally offer her the job – which she will accept. After all, word of the prospective move broke last week and neither of the principals has sought to squelch the speculation.

But there have also been reports that Mrs. Clinton, well into her second term in the Senate, has conflicted feelings about joining the administration. If she does still harbor presidential aspirations, such a reaction would be perfectly understandable.  read more »

Why would Barack Obama invite Hillary Clinton into a serious discussion of her potential appointment as secretary of state without reaching his own conclusions about the risks and benefits of that possibility? That seems frivolous and foolish, neither of which describe the manner in which the president-elect is conducting the transition. Unless he has made his first big mistake, the likelihood is that he and his team were prepared to make the offer before they contacted her.

Certainly Mr. Obama has had plenty of time to mull over the issues surrounding that appointment, including the role of the former president who happens to be married to Senator Clinton.  read more »

If Hillary Clinton’s becomes Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, Governor David Paterson fills her vacancy in the Senate.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg had nice things to say about Hillary Clinton, who is reported to be under consideration to become Bar  read more »

COLONIE—After a speech about public transit today, Senator Hillary Clinton took no questions about what she was doing in Chicago yesterday amid reports that she is a favored candidate to serve as President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of state.  read more »

COLONIE—From Hillary Clinton at an appearance here just now, on the secretary of state speculation:

"I'm not going to speculate."

Also: "I'm going to respect his process."  read more »

Speculation about Barack Obama selecting Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state has spread despite a paucity of real information on the matter—spokesmen for both sides refuse to comment, many advisers swear they simply just don't know.

But a recent conversation with one former Clinton campaign aide, before Andrea Mitchell reported that Clinton was actually being considered for the position, suggested that Clinton's greatest obstacle to a cabinet appointment may be her husband.

According to the former aide, the lack of transparency that has characterized contributions to the former president's library, plus the considerable amount of foreign money given to his charitable Clinton Global Initiative fund, can only complicate Hillary's chances by raising the prospect of unpleasant surprises for an Obama team famously averse to them.

Page Six is reporting that a former callgirl named Natalie McLennan, whose name was exposed by an unnamed website, was responsible for blowing the whistle on Ashley Dupre. [P6]

In an interview with Vogue, Jennifer Aniston says it was "very uncool" of Angelina Jolie to publically discuss the beggining of her relationship with the then still-married Brad Pitt: "There was stuff printed there that was definitely from a time when I was unaware that it was happening...I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss."[NYDN]

The audience reaction Hillary Clinton at the 200th anniversary of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where husband Bill has his offices, was apparently "courteous, but not nearly as exuberant as it used to be...Nothing compared to the applause she would have received a year ago." [P6]  read more »

Never before was the issue of electability so central to a party’s presidential nominating contest than in this year’s Democratic clash between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Very early on, Obama presented himself as a unifying figure who could draw in independents and even some Republicans, opening up the electoral map and creating previously unimaginable targets for Democrats. But as Obama moved ahead in the delegate count, Clinton and her campaign began loudly challenging his claim, arguing that he would repel white, working-class voters and Hispanics, lose critical swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and come apart when confronted with aggressive Republican attacks.  read more »

Just about every story written about Rahm Emanuel since Barack Obama selected him to serve as White House chief of staff has described him as the tough Chicago operative who became the consummate Washington insider.

But how sensitive will the bulldog at Mr. Obama’s gate be to New York interests?

“We’re fortunate to have a president-elect who represents a big state, who lives in a big city, who understands the needs of cities like ours,” Hillary Clinton told The Observer during a conference call on Nov. 11. “I think we are going to have a strong ear in the White House.  read more »

Last evening, at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards at Carnegie Hall, Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced "Media Mogul" Tyra Banks. "Maya Angelou told Tyra to go into politics, but Tyra said ‘I have too many swimsuit pictures for that,'" said Mr. Bloomberg. "That's what I said, but I didn't let it stop me... She is 6'2" in heels—something else we have in common."

When Ms. Banks took the stage, she thanked her mother and shared her particular brand of TyraWisdom with the teenage girls seated in the balcony: "If you have a dream and you have a goal; if you knock on that front door, and they won't let you in, go through the back door. And if the back door is locked; go through the cellar, or go through the basement. And if that's locked, climb through the window, but get in. So sometimes, the way that things may come to pass, and you have to figure out a way to get yourself up in there."

If there's one thing this Glamour ceremony can be counted on for, it's getting the sentimentality (and the waterworks) flowing. And so the evening—which also honored three of the seven female Nobel Peace Prize winners, Senator Hillary Clinton, primatologist Jane Goodall, and artist Kara Walker—was long on inspirational, feel-good stories and short on irony. (Not a bad thing!)  read more »

Anne Kornblut, who covered the presidential election for The Washington Post and will soon be reporting for the paper on the Obama White House, will write a book called Rejection: Why America Isn't Ready for A Woman President for the Crown imprint of Random House.

The book was acquired for a sum in the mid-six figures by editor Sean Desmond in a deal that was brokered by the Endeavor Talent Agency's Richard Abate.

Ms. Kornblut's is the first of what is sure to be many post-election books, a category that is so far known to include titles from Newsweek, Media Matters' Eric Boehlert, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, and Ms. Kornblut's Post colleagues Haynes Johnson and Dan Balz.

The combination of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire should give Barack Obama the presidency. The reason: Pennsylvania and New Hampshire were the only two Kerry '04 states that John McCain was seriously contesting. He has now lost them both, giving Obama a lock on 252 electoral votes (the number won by Kerry in 2004). Add Ohio's 20 electoral votes to that total and Obama is over the magic number. The rest of the outstanding battleground states are all red states; wins by McCain would not sink Obama under the 270 mark. The only hope for McCain now, if you can call it that, is a botched call in one of the projected states.  read more »

Determining when the 2008 presidential race actually began is an inexact science, but a strong case can be made for the early summer of 2004. John Kerry and George W. Bush were locked in a tight battle in that year’s election, but several developments back then set in place some of the fundamental dynamics that have defined the campaign that now, nearly four and a half years later, is finally coming to an end.

The first was Kerry’s effort to entice John McCain to run with him on the Democratic ticket. Today, it seems ludicrous that Kerry would have considered this, that McCain might have been interested, and that the Democratic Party would have gone along with it.  read more »

City Hall gadfly (and by-the-way Department of Transportation employee) Isac Weinberger has some predictions for Tuesday’s elections.  read more »

Over the course of 86 long and futile years, fans of the Boston Red Sox convinced themselves that they were victims of a curse, incapable of winning the World Series because of their franchise’s decision to trade Babe Ruth. But the Red Sox finally broke the curse in 2004 and followed it up with another world championship three years later, and now the Fenway Faithful no longer carry themselves like snake-bitten misanthropes.

Something similar is happening to Democrats, who have spent much of this decade wondering if it just might be impossible for them to win a national election without a Clinton on the ticket.  read more »

Some random pieces of information about the last stage of the close-fought race between Republican Representative Randy Kuhl and challenger Eric Massa:

Kuhl just announced that he's going to be holding his election night party at Pleasant Valley Wine Company Visitors Center,  read more »

In mid-October, about three weeks to go before election night, Barack Obama found himself in the classy old Metropolitan Club on 66th Street with a group of his top New York fund-raisers.

He told them there was “extraordinary expertise” in the room. “Who knows?” he said. “There might be some of you who decide that you want to spend a little time in government.”

Perhaps. But there’s something better: The New Yorkers who had the prescience and stamina to support Mr. Obama when Hillary Clinton was the dominant Democrat now carry Barack Platinum Cards; if he wins on Nov. 4, their credit limit will be high.  read more »

Last night, after Hillary Clinton presented an award to Iris Weinshall at the 38th annual Women Write the World gala, Weinshall's husband, Chuck Schumer, explained how valuable his wife has been to his political career.

Taking the stage, Schumer recounted a night years ago, during Ed Koch's third term as mayor.  read more »

TAMPA—Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stood together behind a podium as another enormous crowd for the Democratic nominee chanted “Yes We Can” over and over again at an outdoor rally in Orlando on the afternoon of Oct. 20.

“Not only that,” Clinton interrupted the nearly 50,000 supporters. “Yes we will!”

Her version didn’t catch on, just as it didn’t during the end of the primaries, when she adopted it as a last-ditch riposte to Obama’s. But besides some recycled lines from her protracted battle against Obama, there was little reminder of the strained past between the two Democrats and Clinton enthusiastically made the case for Obama on the stump.  read more »

Here's the crowd that has gathered for a joint Obama-Clinton event in Orlando that is set to start around now. According to the local television news, people started lining up (unneccessarily) before sunrise. Attendance is expected to reach 50,000.

ORLANDO—Hillary Clinton was here to greet Barack Obama when his campaign plane touched down shortly after 5 p.m. The New York senator then ascended the steps as Obama was disembarking and greeted the man who defeated her in the Democratic primary with apparent warmth. Their brief conversation before they got into separate SUVs for the journey to their rally here this evening was inaudible to reporters.

Obama came over to the photographers gathered on the tarmac clutching a Mickey Mouse hat which had apparently been left on the seat of his vehicle. He asked the photogs how much they would pay him to put it on. When responses of "$2" and "$5" came back, Obama countered "not enough," and walked away smiling.

Democratic State Senate candidate Brian Foley announced he’s been endorsed by Clinton, saying “together, we can bring change to Albany - change that will make a real difference.”

Speaking of change, anybody keeping count of the number of Democrats touting their support of (or from) Barack Obama, compared to Clinton?

Obama may be the Democratic presidential nominee, but there, Clinton is still the more coveted endorsement, it seems.

Anyway, this is the latest endorsement of Clinton that’s been touted by Democrats running for office around the state. She’s also endosed Don Barber for State Senate in Cortland, and Mike McMahon for Congress on Staten Island.  read more »

Yesterday Hillary Clinton called the possibility that the City Council will extend term limits without a public vote “disturbing,” but Michael Bloomberg may not have heard that yet.

Asked about Clinton’s comments, Bloomberg jokingly said, “Do I have to have one?” He went on to say, “I don’t know what she said. Look, I don’t know what Senator Clinton’s position is. On this, you should ask her.”

He went on to say that regardless of her position, she’s done a good job for New York.

Bloomberg was speaking to reporters in Times Square this afternoon after unveiling the new TKTS ticket booth.

SCRANTON, Pa.—For a while, the political rally that took place in here on Oct. 12 seemed to be happening in a parallel universe in which Hillary Clinton is running a general-election campaign.

Scranton, of course, is Clinton Country. Older white women constituted the majority of the crowd inside the Astroturf-carpeted sports complex, and many of them wore Hillary buttons on their shirts. Several of the men wore Hillary buttons on the suspenders they used to hold up their jeans. Bill delivered an address attesting to his wife’s wonderfulness. Vice presidential candidate Joe Biden spent the first portion of his speech talking about how close he was to Clinton.  read more »

It was only a matter of time: Larry Flynt's Hustler Films has produced a Sarah Palin-themed movie. [R&M] 

Page Six claims that Bill and Hillary Clinton's tepid support of Barack Obama is due to the Democratic nominee's refusal to promise Mrs. Clinton a spot on the Supreme Court if Mr. Obama gets elected. Clinton reps responded, "Absurd. Nonsense. Rubbish. Hogwash. Malarkey." [P6]  

Miramax has reached a $9 million settlement with producer Marty Richards, who accused the company of using "deceptive accounting practices" to cheat him out of money earned by Chicago. Of Miramax founder Harvey Weinstein, Richards has said "This is not a nice man. I won't speak to him anymore." [P6]  read more »

Hillary Clinton stressed the importance of Congress passing some kind of bailout legislation on a conference call with reporters today. In making her argument, Clinton connected the crisis on Wall Street with the effects of a poor economy on the average person.

“It sounds dire," she said before I had to jump off the call, "but commerce could grind to a halt.” She went on to say she’s heard from small business owners who “cannot get the credit they need to stay in business,” and she added, “On the personal level, students are going to have increasing trouble finding college loans.”

Both parties have had trouble selling the financial bailout bill to constituents.

Hillary Clinton just held a press conference on Maiden Lane in the Financial District, where said she’d like to see “sweeping intervention” by the federal government to help people in danger of defaulting on their home mortgages.

Clinton said she’s joining Representative Barney Frank in calling for the creation of a modern-day equivalent of the “Home Owners Loan Corporation,” which was created in 1933 and saved a million homes, according to Clinton. A new corporation could save “three times” as many, she said.

The scene drew tons of spectators, many of whom seemed more interested in getting a photo of the state’s junior senator than hearing the details of what she had to say about stabilizing the housing, credit and financial markets.  read more »

New York City women who support Barack Obama held a rally at City Hall yesterday, ostensibly to counter the post-Palin storyline of female voters moving to John McCain.

At the end of the rally, I asked some attendees if thought Palin was being treated fairly during the campaign, or if, as Hillary Clinton asserted during her campaign, sexism is still an issue on the campaign trail.

“I can’t speak for Ms. Palin,” said City Councilwoman Letitia James.

“Nor do I think that we need to waste much time on it!” shouted actress Kathleen Turner.

The crowd roared. Afterwards, Representatives Nydia Velazquez and Yvette Clarke took turns at answering the question.

Hillary Clinton used her appearance at the State of Israel Bonds dinner in Manhattan last night to emphasize her position on a nuclear Iran. 

“U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons,” she said. “As the Iranian president travels to New York to meet at the United Nations...we must raise our voices together in opposition to the message he carries and the threat Iran poses.”

The event, at the Grand Hyatt, was organized by the Development Corporation of Israel in honor of labor leader Stuart Appelb