Friends, to understand a Clinton -- follow the money! -- and, then examine the success of McCain-Feingold!

From the New York Post (p.2) for Wednesday, April 4th, comes a much more reliable indicator of what Hillary Clinton plans to do, than what she 'says' from day to day; this from reporter Vincent Morris, who broke Friday's story --

"Hard Choice: Senator axes soft-$$ bid"

"A source close to the former first lady confirmed that Clinton will concentrate on raising only 'hard money' for HILLPAC and drumming up contributions for her 2006 re-election effort."

In other words, now that John McCain has muscled McCain-Feingold through the Senate -- whether or not it passes the House in the current year, Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided it will eventually pass -- and she does not want to be on the wrong side of this issue. This is not because she has suddenly developed an aversion to raising money. HILLPAC opened for business, according to Morris, on January 5th and is already flush with contributions from her long-time supporters.

Hillary Clinton "was tops in Senate-race soft-money spending during last year's election" reported Morris. Furthermore, speaking on Fox News this morning, on a cable news show, Morris confirmed and reconfirmed her apparent decision not to seek the Presidency. It would seem obvious that Hillary Rodham Clinton has yielded that turf to Senator Joseph I. Lieberman. The media here in Connecticut has already carried at least two stories on Lieberman's prospects, and on the formation of a committee to help him pay travel expenses for visits to other parts of the country (i.e., not in his role as a Senator on official biz).

New York Senate 2000 was the soft-money fund that the Democrats established to support Clinton in her campaign, last year, and it raised millions from the Hollywood aristocracy and from the "good people" out in the Hamptons on Long Island (like Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger). Its soft-money operations blatantly contradicted the rules set by the FEC, based on the laws passed by Congress in previous years, but there is apparently no one in the government willing to criticize her for what New York Senate 2000 did. No doubt some of the millions skimmed from the elites in Hollywood went into "get out the vote" efforts, but anyone who thinks that they needed or used those millions to "build" the Democratic Party in New York is smoking a hallucinogenic weed of some kind!!! They did not need it, and they did not spend the money predominantly on that, which means that the bulk of the soft money collected must have been distributed either as "street money" or to buy advertising and television time.

Remember, this 'soft money' fund was above and beyond the hard dollar contributions made directly to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign fund. She also raised considerable monies from her supporters in Connecticut, California and Texas. No doubt every person who ever sent her even so much as $1.00 will be targetted for solicitations in the next five and 1/2 years.

Follow this money trail, and it seems to establish clearly that Hillary Rodham Clinton has harkened unto "the Q" and changed her course dramatically. She now has her own home in D.C. -- as if she was ever going to be a real New Yorker any way! -- her own leadership PAC, and is clearly planning to run for re-election in 2006. She is going to play the hard-money, hard-ball political game that other Senators play, which means trying to live down the disgusting practices and behaviors of her soon-to-be-an-ex, William Jefferson Caligula.

What remains is for her to cut a deal to make the obvious sale of pardons and commutations -- like in the New Square, New York case -- go away. The reality of being a sitting Senator is that your comrades in the Senate don't want to sully themselves by attacking you and your fund-raising history (and especially not when they have all benefitted from the soft-money wrangle).

Something must occur to make it possible for her quash any pending indictments for the New Square scandal. This precision realignment of her political funds and the idea that she is jettisoning her highly successful "soft money machine" indicates, clearly, that HRC wants to keep the protections of the Senate wrapped around her for the rest of her life.

Here is the URL for the previous posting:

: http://www.nypostonline.com/cgi-bin/printfriendly.pl

: HILL MUDDIES WATERS ON NEVER RUNNING FOR PREZ
: Saturday,April 7,2001

: By BRIAN BLOMQUIST

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