WEBSTER CITY, Iowa – Hillary Rodham Clinton has already been on the campaign trail long enough that she could have popped out a bright-eyed sibling for Chelsea, she told Iowans yesterday.
“Can I tell you how amazing it was for me to realize that after I’d been doing this for nine months, October rolled around . . . I could have had a baby in the time that I’d been campaigning,” she told a crowd of seniors at a gym here.
She noted enviously that hubby Bill didn’t even announce for president until October 1991, just over a year before he got elected.
This year, with Election Day still more than a year away, Sen. Clinton would have enough time to have a third child and make a full nuclear family.
She was responding to a question from retired teacher Elizabeth Oleson, who asked when Clinton or other candidates planned to dial back campaigning, griping: “We’ve had this for a year.”
Clinton, who was losing her voice on the trail yesterday, wholeheartedly agreed, saying, “Boy, are you singing my song.
“I would love to figure out if there’s a way we could shorten the time, cut the money [to] create an environment in which we don’t wear people out,” said Clinton, last quarter’s fund-raising champ.
She added, “You all are very good humored that you keep coming to these events, and keep seeing it over and over again. I think that it’s got to be exhausting to you.”
All the time on the trail also had Clinton yearning for what she seemed to describe as quieter days around the White House hearth.
“Of course, when Bill was president I didn’t work outside the home as we might say,” she said.
Oleson, 75, said she can’t stand the barrage of TV ads and campaigning here, where the nation’s first caucus will be held.
“You just follow and follow and follow them, and it’s just tiring,” she said.
She said the amount of campaign cash needed was “unbelievable,” although she said she liked Clinton.