Syracuse.com

Hillary Clinton won't say if Gore should be candidate

By MARC HUMBERT The Associated Press 8/29/01 4:27 PM

MENANDS, N.Y. (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton refused to say Wednesday if Al Gore should be the party's presidential nominee in 2004, but said she still has no interest in running herself.

"I'm just not going to get into that," she said in an interview with The Associated Press when asked about Gore and the 2004 campaign. "I want everybody who believes they should run to get out there and make the case. The cauldron of a campaign is a very telling environment."

Asked if she felt Gore would seek the 2004 nomination, Clinton said, "I have no idea."

She said the last contact she or her husband had with Gore was when he called about a week ago to wish the former president a happy birthday.

Pressed about her own possible presidential ambitions for 2004, Clinton shook her head.

"I don't even want to talk about this. It's not anything that's going to happen," she said.

"I don't have any long-term plans," she said when asked about running for a second Senate term in 2006. "I'm pretty focused on day-by-day."

The former first lady also continued her frequent attacks on President Bush, suggesting his handling of the federal budget and the economy would be good for Democrats in the upcoming elections.

"I believe we've got a good case to make already. The administration has undone so much of the success of the last eight years in less than eight months," she said, as she clutched a glass of iced tea in the Menands Diner just north of Albany. "Imagine how it's going to look in a year or two."

In an earlier speech to about 150 Schenectady-area Democrats, Clinton also attacked Bush's handling of the federal budget and the tax cut he pushed through Congress and which has Americans getting back tax rebate checks of up to $600 per couple this summer.

She said that because of "the hole that this tax cut has dug for us," she and some congressional colleagues were considering revisiting an idea earlier rejected by Congress -- to legislate economic triggers that could slow down the tax cut.

"I think we should revisit the triggers," she told reporters after her speech.

She said that while the idea was earlier rejected, that might not be the case now given projections of a shrinking budget surplus and the possible need to use Social Security funds to balance the budget.

"Now, it's not a theoretical argument," she said.

-- Anonymous, August 29, 2001