Clinton I haven't considered possibility of losing Dem nomination

David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Raw Story
Tuesday November 27, 2007

Clinton says 'it's time' for aggressive campaign
The much-discussed "inevitability" factor is widely regarded as a major strength for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and the senator herself appears to be buying in.

In an interview with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News, Clinton was asked how "disappointed" she would be if she wasn't her party's eventual nominee for president.

"Well, it will be me," Clinton shot back. "But of course, I'm ready to support the Democratic nominee, whoever it is."

Pressed by Couric about whether she had considered the possibility of seeing another Democrat in the general election, Clinton was dismissive.

"No, I haven't," said the senator. "You know, when you get up every day like I do and you go out and meet hundreds and thousands of people and you talk about yourself, and you talk about your dreams and hopes for the country... that takes up all my time and energy, to just keep presenting myself and my candidacy. So I get up every day intending to meet and reach as many as people as possible -- then I go to bed at night and I get up and do it all over again."

"So you never even consider the possibility?" repeated Couric.

"I don't. I don't," Clinton responded.

The former first lady also fielded a question about the new "aggressive tone" her campaign appears to have adopted.

"Well, it's time," said Clinton of her toughening rhetoric about her Democratic rivals. "I have absorbed a lot of attacks for several months now. My opponents have basically had a free reign...but after you've been attacked as often as I have -- from several of my opponents -- you can't just absorb it. You have to respond."

Clinton has stepped up criticisms of fellow Democratic presidential contenders in recent days, and targeted Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) last week for asserting that his time living abroad as a child was a part of his foreign relations experience.

"Voters will have to judge if living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face," Clinton had said. "I was wondering which world leader told her that we needed to invade Iraq," was Obama's retort.

"A lot of the attacks have been quite persistent shall we say," Clinton told Couric in the interview, describing critical comments from she says come from Republicans and Democrats alike. "Hardly a day goes by when I'm not attacked. And I just figure that it's about time now for me to draw the contrasts, which I think are pretty important to voters. And that's what I'm going to do."

This video is from CBS Evening News, broadcast on November 26, 2007.