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New York to see if Sen. Clinton can deliver

NEW YORK (CNN) -- First lady Hillary Rodman Clinton's swearing-in as New York's junior senator Wednesday leaves New Yorkers watching to see whether she can keep the promises she made in her historic campaign.

Clinton
Hillary Rodman Clinton  

Her election in November capped a year and a half of campaigning and made her the first presidential spouse to win federal office. During her run for the Senate, Clinton told New Yorkers she could relate to their concerns.

"I care about the same issues you do. I understand them and I know I can make progress on them," she said. "That's why, my friends, I want to be your senator."

During the campaign, Clinton promised to make progress with specific proposals -- chiefly a plan to improve upstate New York's struggling business climate.

"My first bill on my own behalf will concern the upstate economy, and also parts of downstate that have not yet realized the full benefit of the economic prosperity that we enjoy," she said in an interview after the vote.

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Clinton also promised to make health care a top priority, telling voters she had learned to take smaller steps from the failure of her health care initiative early in her husband's administration. But her goals remain the same.

"It's time to pass a real patients' bill of rights and provide access to affordable health care for every single child and family in this country," she told the Democratic National Convention in August.

Education was another top priority of her campaign, and she is proposing a national teacher corps -- offering scholarships to up to 60,000 students on condition that they commit to teach in high-need public schools for at least four years. But observers suggest these and other proposals may not go very far in a legislative body weighted against her.

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"That really is probably unreasonable to expect, given she is a junior senator in the minority party with a Republican president," said Lee Miringoff, an analyst with the Marist Institute of Public Opinion.

One of the most closely watched promises of Clinton's campaign has nothing to do with policy or legislation -- her promise that she will not attempt to run for president in 2004.

"I have no interest in it," she told CNN in October.

Of course Mrs. Clinton had no interest in running for a U.S. Senate seat either until New York Democrats convinced her to do just that. And her pledge not to run for President is one many voters believe is a promise just waiting to be broken: A Marist Institute poll found that about 40 percent of New Yorkers believe she will run for the White House in 2004.

 
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Wednesday, January 3, 2001


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