Clinton Acknowledges Perception Counts

HAMPTON, N.H. (AP) – Senator Clinton of New York said Saturday that her failed 1993 health care plan showed her that perception counts as much as reality when it comes to advocating openness in government.The Democratic presidential front-runner continued campaigning in New Hampshire a day after announcing a government reform plan aimed at making government more competent, cost-effective and transparent. Citing the Bush administration’s “culture of cronyism,” she vowed to improve accountability by cutting back on no-bid government contracts, banning former Cabinet officials from lobbying their former colleagues and requiring all government agencies to post their budgets and related documents online.As first lady, Mrs. Clinton oversaw a massive project to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Before the plan collapsed, she faced frequent criticism that the task force she led too often operated in secrecy.Though Mrs. Clinton dismissed suggestions Saturday that the project wasn’t as open as she promises to make the next Clinton administration, she acknowledged that “the perception (of secrecy) was there.”“There were more than 1,000 people involved and there were many public meetings,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But the perception was there. So we have to not only do the reality of openness and transparency, but we’ve got to make that very clear to people so they perceive it as well.”Part of her job, Mrs. Clinton said, will be convincing citizens that government reform touches their everyday lives as much as more tangible issues such as health care and education. As an example, she cited a woman who attended a Clinton event earlier Saturday with five of her six children. Part of the woman’s question was about making college more affordable.“I think it matters to her that there’s an official in the Department of Education who’s supposed to be overseeing the student loan program who took stock in one of the companies,” Mrs. Clinton said.That official, Matteo Fontana, was placed on leave earlier this month after it was discovered that owned at least $100,000 worth of stock in a student loan company.“If you care about global climate change, it matters that we have a government that won’t let our professional scientists speak about global climate change,” Mrs. Clinton said. “So these things can all be connected and we’ve got to get back to where we have confidence in our government and its competence in order to be able to do any of the things people want from government.”Earlier Saturday, Mrs. Clinton called President Bush’s refusal to change in course in Iraq a “tragedy of historic proportions,” but said she’s not ready to back the latest attempt to cut funding for the war.At a house party where more than 50 people sat on rented chairs crammed in a living room, Mrs. Clinton was urged to co-sponsor a bill proposed by Senators Reid and Feingold that would cut off funding for the Iraq war by March 31, 2008.“I’m not ready to co-sponsor it now,” Mrs. Clinton said, repeating her argument that Congress instead should focus on pressuring Mr. Bush to work with Democrats.“I think it’s important for the American people to see the Democratic majority go the extra mile,” she said. “We have to show the American people that it is he who is being unreasonable.”Senator Dodd of Connecticut is the only Democratic presidential hopeful to support the Reid-Feingold measure.Addressing nearly a thousand people later in a high school gym, Mrs. Clinton faced her harshest questioner of the day: a young woman who said she had traveled from New York to ask the senator whether she had read a 92-page intelligence document before her 2002 vote to authorize the war.“I was thoroughly briefed on it. I was briefed on it,” Mrs. Clinton said repeatedly, as the woman tried to interrupt her. “I think it’s such a difficult thing to go back in time and say what everyone was thinking.“What I will say is I believed that what we were doing was giving the president the authority to put inspectors in Iraq. That’s what we were told privately. That’s what we were told publicly.”On questions ranging from health care to campaign spending, Mrs. Clinton sought to emphasize her experience, frequently including the phrase “I’ve been through this” in her answers.When one audience member asked if she would stay within the public campaign financing system in the general election if the Republican nominee promised to do the same, Mrs. Clinton said she wouldn’t make that promise right now.She said she supports public financing, limiting the length of the campaign season and further restricting how money is spent, though she said the last goal might require a constitutional amendment given the Supreme Court’s position that campaign money equals free speech.She also said she feared the Republican nominee would not keep his word regarding campaign spending limits.“I’ve been through this before, so I may be a little more skeptical about making deals with the other side,” she said.She accused Republicans of having a long history of using other groups, and their money, to attack opponents.“They are good at it. The are ruthless at it,” she said. “I don’t intend to disarm because I’m going to beat them.”

Clinton Acknowledges Perception Counts

Clinton Acknowledges Perception Counts

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