http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-02-20/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-57416.asp

From: News and Views

Sunday, February 20, 2000

Hil: I Was Key D.C. Player

She needles Giuliani on his temper

By JOEL SIEGEL Senior Political Correspondent

Hillary Rodham Clinton makes no apologies for wrapping herself in President Clinton's legacy as she campaigns for Senate, saying she's had a significant impact on her husband's policies, as well as major accomplishments of her own.

In an interview with the Sunday News, the First Lady declared that she has been a player in the administration with an important role on issues from welfare reform to the President's popular economic agenda.

"I think that, in the course of our life together, we've been partners in so many ways," the First Lady said.

Hillary Clinton emphasizes the role she's played in her husband's policies. "During his presidency, I've tried to be as supportive as I could in helping him get what he needed to get done, working with other people in the administration and pursuing parts of the agenda that I've felt particularly strongly about."

She disputed accusations made by Mayor Giuliani, her opponent for the Senate, that he has a major public record and she does not.

In stump speeches, the First Lady often uses the word "we" in talking about the accomplishments of the Clinton administration  while stressing that she has a 30-year record of accomplishment as a lawyer, corporate board member and advocate for children and families.

Embraces Bill's Legacy

Asked whether satisfaction with Clinton White House policies is a good reason to vote for her, she said without hesitation: "It is, because I want to continue those policies, and to build on them, and we already have seen significant contrasts between me and the mayor."

The First Lady criticized the mayor's main campaign theme: his vow to do for the entire state what he's done for the city.

"I am not running for mayor, and neither is he," she said. "We're running for the U.S. Senate, where I think different skills are at play, and where the issues are different and they demand different kinds of leadership."

"When you show up in the Senate, you can't hire, fire and insult your colleagues if you don't get along with them," she added, a thinly veiled barb at Giuliani's temperament.

Does she think the mayor really wants to be senator, or just wants to defeat her? "I don't know," she said with a laugh. "Maybe we can put him on the couch and find out."

Clinton was relaxed and laughed frequently during the 45-minute interview. Asked whether it was a mistake to blame a "vast right-wing conspiracy" for her husband's impeachment troubles, the First Lady said, "I thought that was sort of behind us  until I read [the mayor's campaign] mailings  I think he has their mailing list."

For the First Lady, running partly on the accomplishments of the Clinton administration risks alienating voters who don't like the President's personal conduct and complicates her strategy of presenting herself as an accomplished person in her own right.But it may score points in New York, a state where the President's job approval rating is sky high.

Health, Welfare Roles

She noted that the President, not she, "set the agenda, explained it to the American people and got it done." But the First Lady rattled off a list of policy initiatives, including health coverage for 2 million uninsured children and increased adoption of foster kids, she had been involved in.

She said she has lobbied Congress on behalf of the President's economic program, and that another signature Clinton accomplishment  welfare reform  "is something that I and my staff were very much a part of creating."

"I worked very hard to make sure the bill that came to the President after he vetoed it was one that could be signed and would actually move people from welfare to work," she said. "I was a strong voice inside the White House and was a strong voice with many of the interest groups on the outside, who were not in favor of welfare reform, of going ahead and [supporting] the bill."

Regarding sharp declines in crime, welfare and unemployment that the mayor is building his campaign around, Clinton said, "You're not going to find me saying that nothing good has happened in New York City."

But, she added, "It hasn't happened in a vacuum. It has happened at a time when every city is just about doing better and a lot of good things are happening in our country."

As for the mayor, she said, "I think he's reverting to what he was before he was mayor. He is returning to the Republican fold."

On the questions raised about Clinton-era scandals, the First Lady maintained that "tens of thousands of documents" have shown there's "no there there" to the swirl of ethical issues that have dogged her from Travelgate to the missing Rose Law Firm billing records that suddenly turned up in the White House.

She said simply that "nobody knows" how the billing records ended up in the White House.

"Probably the best explanation is that they were in boxes of junk that were moved to the White House, that was moved around and unpacked over time and ended up in a stack of stuff," she said.

"And as soon as they were found, they were turned over. I mean, that's the real story. And there was nothing to them."

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 21, 2000