Hillary gets ready to run

[onehandle]

Love her or hate her? Poll shows most voters have already decided

If you ask anyone around Hillary Clinton the question that everyone is asking, the answer comes back in a shot: The freshman Senator from New York is far too busy concentrating on her re-election in November to be giving even a passing thought to 2008. Thank you very much.

But politics is ultimately a game of logistics, and the junior Senator is putting the machinery in place for a campaign that looks far grander than a re-election cakewalk in New York. All it will need is for someone to throw the switch.

Against virtually nonexistent opposition for her Senate seat, she is raising money as though she were in the fight of her life, bringing in more than $33 million. What's left over -- which might easily be $10 million or more -- could be the seed money for a presidential campaign.

And as her husband did the year before launching his 1992 bid for the presidency, she has been putting together the intellectual pieces of a campaign agenda in a series of centrist, high-fiber speeches around energy policy, the economy, privacy and even rural issues.

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Clinton does best against McCain

Her negative ratings (44%) were lower than either Kerry's or Gore's. In hypothetical matchups with the preseason GOP favorite, John McCain, Hillary is the only big-name Democrat to make a real race of it, with McCain edging her by just 2 points among registered voters. By comparison, McCain would trounce Kerry by 10 points and Gore by 9.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/20/coverstory.tm/index.html