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Standing ovation for Clinton's return to Washington

BY GLENN THRUSH | glenn.thrush@newsday.com; Janie Lorber contributed to thi

June 25, 2008

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton's staff used to obsess over the selection of power ballads and you-go-girl anthems at the candidate's rallies, but she faced a different kind of music yesterday on Capitol Hill.

The fallen frontrunner - now simply New York's junior senator - walked into the Democrats' weekly caucus lunch to a forks-on-glasses serenade and standing ovation from 40 Senate colleagues.

"Glad to be here, my friends, glad to be here," Clinton said as she made her way past a greeting party of interns from her office and well-wishers on the Capitol steps.

Clinton, who will appear at her first joint public rally with presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama in Unity, N.H., on Friday, is learning to face life as a senator after seven years as a candidate and candidate-in waiting.

She took her first steps toward the commonplace yesterday afternoon, telling caucus members she planned to be an active advocate for their agenda and promising to campaign for Democratic candidates around the country if called upon.

"I am rolling up my sleeves and getting back to work," she told reporters.

"My role is to be the very best senator I can be and to represent the greatest state in our country," added Clinton, who hasn't made an official public appearance in Nassau or Suffolk counties in her capacity as senator since Oct. 24, 2006.

Clinton's campaign is about $21 million in debt, with the candidate privately admitting she's likely to lose the $11 million she loaned the campaign from her personal fortune. In a major boost, Obama's fundraising team yesterday agreed to begin raising cash to pay off the $10 million Clinton owes to vendors - ranging from restaurants to caterers and the millions owed to her pollster Mark Penn, according to a top Obama aide.

The move came as Bill Clinton, who had clashed with Obama during the campaign, made news of his own yesterday, releasing a less-than-thunderous endorsement of the Illinois senator through an aide.

"President Clinton is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States," a spokesman wrote in an e-mail.

His wife, wearing a turquoise pantsuit and bemused smile as she inched her way through the media horde, brushed off suggestions she was still angling for the vice presidency.

"I am not seeking any other position," she said. "It is not something that I think about. It is totally Senator Obama's decision."

Earlier, reporters asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) if sexism played a part in Clinton's defeat. "Is there sexism? Probably so. Is it responsible for the defeat? I really wouldn't have all of the information to know that. But I do think that being a woman had a positive upside in the campaign - probably offset by more sexism, I don't know."

Clinton was escorted into the meeting by New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer, and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), and sat through a Schumer introduction that praised her perseverance. "It was genuinely positive and heartfelt," Schumer said of her reception. "That's because people knew what she had been through."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein - whose house was the site of a late-night meeting between Clinton and Obama - said the homecoming was moving but she didn't want to get carried away.

"It was emotional in terms of, it's great to see her again," the California Democrat said as she left the lunch. "Did we cry? No. Did our hearts palpitate? I can't comment - I don't know. Did mine? Somewhat."

Janie Lorber

contributed to this story.