Voices grow louder in the anti-Clinton chorus

[babylonsister]

Voices grow louder in the anti-Clinton chorus

November 4, 2007

BY CHUCK RAASCH and BRIAN TUMULTY

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

CHERAW, S.C. -- The sheen of inevitability that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has cloaked around her presidential candidacy has been suddenly and fiercely challenged.

As the 2008 presidential campaign comes into focus for many Americans, will attacks on the New York senator's veracity, consistency and honesty hurt her, or backfire on her opponents? Will Clinton's less enthusiastic supporters take a second look at her character?

Or will they dig in further for her, seeing the questions about her character as evidence that her opponents are being overrun by the potential first female president's rendezvous with history?

One thing appears increasingly certain: Less than two months before the first real votes are cast, the intensity of attacks on the Democratic senator's character is de facto proof that both Democrats and Republicans consider her the front-runner going into 2008.

She has greatly helped create the impression of being the one to beat, not only by virtue of polls, but in the way she has campaigned.

She is trying to come across as a battle-scarred trailblazer, running a campaign that has all the look and feel of an incumbent president -- down to the Secret Service protection and carefully controlled media access.

Most improbably of all, she's portraying herself as the true change agent, despite 16 years in the national spotlight.

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