Female voters sought
PHILADELPHIA — Americans have lost hope in the future because the Bush administration has let the country get off track at home and sullied the nation's reputation with "cowboy diplomacy" overseas, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.
Speaking at a rally at a downtown hotel, the Democratic presidential candidate told several hundred supporters she would improve health care, establish a responsible energy program and create policies that support the middle class.
"There is a sense that our country is off track, that we're not moving with confidence and optimism into the future," she told the overwhelmingly female audience in a 25-minute speech.
"Too many of our fellow citizens feel like they're invisible, that nobody in their government sees them anymore," ranging from Hurricane Katrina survivors and single mothers to small business owners and veterans denied health care, she said.
Overseas, Clinton said, President Bush has failed the country with his foreign policy since Sept. 11, 2001.
If elected, she vowed to form a bipartisan group that would travel around the world and visit with elected leaders to restore America's reputation and "say clearly that cowboy diplomacy is over. We are going to work with the rest of the world again."
The New York senator and former first lady said that if elected president, she would start pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq "now."
"There is no military solution to the problems in Iraq and unfortunately ... the Iraqi government has not been able or willing to do what only they can do," she said. "I want our young men and women out of the middle of their civil war."
Joining Clinton was a group of elected officials including U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll and former Colorado Rep. Pat Schroeder, all of whom urged Clinton's supporters to serve as her "ambassadors" among their family and friends and donate to her campaign as much and as frequently as possible.
Schroeder told the group that women are an increasingly powerful voting bloc who can elect a female president.
"The White House has been kind of the ultimate American tree house with a big 'No girls allowed' written on it," she said. "And I just think that it's very exciting that we have a chance to rip that sign down and really change things."
The event was sponsored by Club44, an effort by the Clinton campaign to recruit and raise money from younger female voters. (Clinton would be the 44th president.)
