My most extensive conversation with Hillary Clinton was in 1996 when she and President Clinton stopped by the Philadelphia Daily News to meet with its editorial board although it was a foregone conclusion that this street smart tabloid would endorse the president over Republican candidate Bob Dole.
The most memorable aspect of that day was not what Bill and Hill said, which was pretty much par for the course for a prohibitive favorite for re-election, but the botched Secret Service scan of the conference room where we met. Agents did everything but remove the decorative plants from their pots, but failed to notice a large ceremonial African tribal knife in a tasseled leather sheath in the middle of the conference table until the president reached over and began playing with it.
Fast forward 12 years and a visit by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to the same editorial board.
I don’t know how the Secret Service did this time. But judging from an account of the visit by ace Daily News political reporter and blogger Will Bunch, Mrs. Clinton has painted herself into a hell of a corner as she licks her self-inflicted Bosnia trip wounds and continues to try to move the convention delegate goal posts in the run-up to the all-important Pennsylvania primary on April 22.
Incidentally, there were over 4 million new Democratic registrations for the primary by the deadline last night, and that does not include some mail-in registrations. Considering the extensive registration effort mounted by the Barack Obama campaign, one has to think that many of those newbies will be voting for him and Clinton’s lead in the polls may be illusory.
And while newspaper endorsements may not mean as much as they once did, it is beyond likely that the Daily News will endorse Obama. It’s not called “The People Paper” for nothing.
More here.