Clinton's Jobs Promise Under Scrutiny

Sen. Hillary Clinton promised back in 2000, during the campaign for her current Senate term, to create 200,000 jobs in upstate New York.

She has not delivered. In fact, the state has lost jobs since Clinton took office.

An article in the Utica Observer-Dispatch today takes a look at that promise and why it has gone unfulfilled. The article concludes the high level of state taxes has much more to do with the state's loss of jobs than anything Clinton has or has not done.

The article points out Clinton recruited downstate financiers to fund high-tech businesses in Buffalo and Rochester and has used her seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee to get more miliarty jobs for the state.

The senator, according to the article, admits to one miscalculation though. Clinton said she expected Al Gore, not George W. Bush, to win the 2000 election and continue the economic policies of the Clinton-Gore administration.

Meanwhile in a meeting with the the editorial board of the Syracuse Post-Standard on Friday, Clinton placed the jobs problems here in New York squarely at the feet of the Republicans, as the paper reports in this post on its Web site. The interview touched on Clinton's thoughts on other topics, including the war (setting a date to leave is not a good idea) and health care (the Massachusetts model of requiring it is something to look at).


HILLARY HEARS IT FROM THE ANTI-WAR CORNER

As we mentioned Friday, a group of peace activists in Providence, R.I. planned to deliver a message to Clinton whether she wanted to hear them out or not. Clinton, who was at Brown University Saturday to deliver an address on women and leadership, was interrupted a few minutes into her speech. The Associated Press reports the protesters, who wanted to challenge Clinton on her voting record on Iraq, managed to get in four minutes of commentary before they were ushered from the auditorium.

MORE THINGS HILLARY

The Associated Press has done a piece suggesting that the actions of the Clinton campaign indicate that the Senator's camp would rather face former Yonkers mayor John Spencer than former Reagan Administration Defense Dept. spokeswoman KT McFarland in the general elction. One Democratic strategist quoted in the article, Hank Sheinkopf, said Spencer is "way out to the right" and an "easy target" in New York state, which he described as "centrist by nature."