Contents:

• Hillary Strikes Back
  Hillary's campaign responds to StopHillaryPAC.com with an email asking supporters for money to counteract us.
  
  
• Hillary is the Most Admired?
  Yes, believe it or not, Hillary Rodham Clinton was voted the "most admired woman in America."
  
  
• London Thinks She is Running
  Oddsmakers in London boosted her chances of winning the White House, giving her better odds than John Kerry, Dick Gephardt and Joseph Lieberman
  
  
• Presidential E-mail Reappears on Hillary's Web Site
  E-mails urging New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to run for president next year have reappeared on her campaign Web site three months after she ordered similar e-mails removed
  
  
• Her Inner Circle Wants Her to Run
  Members of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's inner circle are urging her to jump into next year's presidential race.
  
  
• Even the Washington Post Thinks She is Running
  Dubs Hillary a 'Shadow Candidate'
  

Within a week of the launch - on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes - of the StopHillaryPAC.com website, Hillary's own campaign responded with an email to all her supporters specifically mentioning us and begging for more $$ to counteract us.

Hillary is the Most Admired?

Yes, believe it or not, Hillary Rodham Clinton - for the second year in a row - was voted the "most admired woman in America."

Monday, Dec. 29, 2003
Poll: Bush, Hillary Most Admired

For the second year in a row, President Bush and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton are the most-admired man and woman in America, according to CNN/USA Today/Gallup's annual year-end survey on the topic.

Twenty-nine percent of Americans named Bush as the most-admired man, followed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Pope John Paul II, who tied at 4 percent each. Bill Clinton was named by just 3 percent.

Among women, Sen. Clinton led the pack, picked by 16 percent. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey followed with 7 percent, with first lady Laura Bush in third place at 6 percent. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice percent came in fourth with 4 percent.

Coincidentally or not, Mrs. Clinton is also the Democrat most favored to challenge President Bush in 2004.

London Thinks She is Running

Though she continues to insist she isn't running, oddsmakers in London boosted Clinton's chances of winning the White House last week from 12-to-1 to 9-to-1, giving her a better chance of becoming president next year than John Kerry, Dick Gephardt and Joseph Lieberman.

As Newsmax.com reported, just before Christmas there were new indications that Hillary is indeed seriously contemplating a run for the White House in 2004:

Presidential E-mail Reappears on Hillary's Web Site
Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003

E-mails urging New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to run for president next year have reappeared on her campaign Web site three months after she ordered similar e-mails removed, saying at the time that she didn't want to create the impression she might enter the 2004 race.

"It is a loss for the country that Senator Clinton isn't running for President next year," wrote Irene, in a message posted in the last few days.

"I am sure that the Democratic nominee for President will be a fine person. However, Senator Clinton would provide an exciting intellectual alternative to the dry, passionless choices we now have," observed Antonio in another recently posted e-mail.

Similar messages posted to the "Hill Notes" page of FriendsofHillary.com in late August prompted a firestorm of media speculation that Sen. Clinton was considering breaking her word and jumping into the presidential race.

But after the e-mails were widely quoted in press reports, Sen. Clinton's spokesman Philippe Reines said she had personally ordered them taken down.
"We don't want anyone to be confused," Reines told reporters, promising, "Any future messages promoting a 2004 run will not be placed on the site."
A call to Sen. Clinton's office asking why Mr. Reines' pledge was no longer being enforced was not returned by press time.

Her Inner Circle Wants Her to Run

Hillary's Inner Circle Urging Her to Run
Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003

Members of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's inner circle are urging her to jump into next year's presidential race.

And while the top Democrat has publicly denied she ready to make the move, privately she's told friends that her party is heading for disaster - comments that contradict her public boasts that Democrats stand an excellent chance of defeating President Bush with the current crop of presidential candidates.

"She has complained to intimates," reports Tuesday's New York Times, "she believes the Democratic Party is in trouble."

Mrs. Clinton's concern over her party's dismal political prospects has driven her to become more vocal, taking the lead in criticizing President Bush and, perhaps not inadvertently, stealing the spotlight from the nine announced presidential candidates.

"Within Mrs. Clinton's tight inner circle of friends and advisors, there is a difference of opinion" about whether she should run in 2004, the Times reports.

"One camp is arguing that President Bush is a much more vulnerable figure than some polls suggest, and that 2004 provides an opportunity for her to make a triumphant return to the White House, this time in the Oval Office."

Bill Clinton has said publicly that he's urged his wife to get into the race this time around, explaining to a California audience in September that New Yorkers have told him they don't care if she breaks her promise to serve out her Senate term.

Another camp in Hillary's inner circle, however, is concerned that if she jumps into the race now, her critics will charge that she only wanted to became a senator as a steppingstone to the White House.

People "close to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton" surmise that the former first couple are "enjoying - and deliberately inviting - speculation about her prospects as a presidential candidate," the Times said.

Even The Washington Post Thinks She is Running

Wash Post Dubs Hillary a 'Shadow Candidate'
Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003

Hillary Clinton is running for president.

That's the verdict of the Washington Post, a newspaper that could hardly be described as an organ of Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy."

"In recent days a half-dozen leading Democrats have delivered major speeches on foreign policy," notes the Post on its Thursday editorial page.

"Mostly, they follow a similar track. Presidential candidates Howard Dean, John Edwards, John F. Kerry, Joseph I. Lieberman and Wesley K. Clark and shadow candidate Hillary Clinton accept many of the goals of the Bush administration but diverge sharply on the means to achieve them."

A few lines later the Post laments that Howard Dean's protectionist trade policy is "shared by every Democratic candidate except Mr. Lieberman (and Ms. Clinton)."

Though we don't often agree with the paper conservatives have dubbed "Pravda on the Potomac," this time the Post has it 100 percent right.

When it comes to this year's crop of presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton is walking, talking and acting like a duck.

She refuses to step away from the political spotlight, takes every opportunity to bash President Bush and even has her minions, like former top White House aides Harold Ickes and Leon Panetta, trash her party's presidential front-runner, Howard Dean, in published interviews.

Then there's her appearance on "Meet the Press" 10 days ago, where she left the door on a 2004 run, if not wide open, decidedly more than slightly ajar.

If she truly is running, skeptics ask, then why won't she make an official announcement?

Why should she? Mrs. Clinton already has everything a presidential front-runner needs. She's the No. 1 choice of Democrats from coast to coast, she has more name recognition than the entire Democratic field put together, and she and her husband are the top fund-raising draws of their party.

Add to that the fact that Hillary has acquired all this without doing a lick of official campaigning, not to mention having to answer all of those pesky media questions announced candidates tend to get asked.

If President Bush looks strong next spring as convention time draws near, Mrs. Clinton can beg off with the simple excuse, "See, I told you I wasn't going to run."

If, however, the president looks vulnerable, Democrats demoralized by the prospect of following Howard Dean over the cliff will welcome Hillary as their standard-bearer with open arms.