Hillary Clinton

Wanted: Politically astute and respected Jewish activists, able to spend long hours on a Democratic Senate campaign. Contacts in diverse segments of community, from Williamsburg to the West Side, essential. Access to wealthy donors a plus.
In a bid to bolster her support and widen her political base in the Jewish community after a disastrous week, Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign is shopping for new advisers.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign was in full-blown crisis mode this week, rounding up Jewish leaders, organizations and politicians to denounce a report that the first lady called a former aide to her husband a "f---g Jewish bastard" in 1974.

Upon entering the Loew's Hotel ballroom in Manhattan last week, some guests at the breakfast of the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty were annoyed that an area surrounding the podium had been roped off, resulting in some tables being moved to the back of the room.
The accommodation was made out of security concerns for Hillary Rodham Clinton, a surprise addition to the list of high profile political figures that annually flock to the event.

The United States must not use foreign aid as leverage against Israel to thwart an arms deal with China, Hillary Rodham Clinton told The Jewish Week in a wide-ranging interview last week.
"I don't think this should be a political football in the foreign aid debate," the first lady said in an hourlong meeting with editors and staff at the paper's Manhattan offices. "We have to take the attitude that we need to be using quiet diplomacy and use whatever intelligence we have available to persuade Israel of our position."

For weeks, Jewish groups worried about a “juvenile justice” bill that many said combined badly needed gun control measures with dangerous provisions on youthful criminals.
If anything, their worries proved understated.
Last week the House nixed gun control, retained the controversial criminal justice provisions — and, for good measure, added three amendments offered by religious right lawmakers that groups such as the Anti-Defamation League say are serious breaches of the church-state wall.

Peace process opponents are hoping her upcoming trip to Israel will prove a political and diplomatic minefield for first lady Hillary Clinton, not a boost to her expected 2000 Senate campaign in New York.
But supporters say Clinton, burned once over her support for Palestinian statehood, is a skilled politician who will tread very lightly during her trip to Israel and Jordan, which begins on June 26.

Among the accomplishments Hillary Rodham Clinton can cite in her quest for the Senate is having taken a formerly right-wing view and made it mainstream.
Peace process advocates who have lobbied against tying U.S. aid with Palestinian efforts to curtail anti-Israel incitement have been silent since the first lady took that position in a meeting with Orthodox leaders last week.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, her support slipping in the Jewish community, veered to the right this week, pointedly calling for restrictions on aid to the Palestinian Authority based on compliance with the Oslo Accords' provisions against inciteful rhetoric.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's delicate dance with Jewish voters continued this week. The good news for her campaign: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up, coming just short of endorsing her unannounced Senate candidacy while praising her conduct during a foray into the West Bank that exposed her to Palestinian anti-Israel propaganda.

Even as she moves to contain the damage from her conduct during a West Bank visit last week with Yasir Arafat's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton is facing new charges from her opponent that she has abandoned her declared support for Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.
Firing back, Clinton's campaign is accusing Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of "playing politics with the peace process."
The controversy suggests that with one year until the two face off in an expected Senate race, both sides already are waging war for undecided Jewish votes seen as crucial to victory.