This got my hopes up.

Hillary returns to Antartic for final time

Unfortunately, it was the wrong Hillary. I should have known that the Hildebeast wouldn't retreat to the South Pole -- but I could hope.

We get the joys of this headline instead.

Sen. Clinton Launches 2008 Campaign

Yeah -- the anti-climax has arrived.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) today announced she will establish a presidential exploratory committee, launching a 2008 campaign that could make her the first female president in history and the only former first lady to succeed her husband in the White House.

In a posting on her campaign Web site, Clinton announced her decision with a headline that read, "I'm In."

I'm surprised that she put that on her website -- that is usually Billzebubba's line.

Her big money quote?

"The stakes will be high when America chooses a new president in 2008," Clinton said in the written statement. "As a senator, I will spend [the next] two years doing everything in my power to limit the damage George W. Bush can do. But only a new president will be able to undo Bush's mistakes and restore our hope and optimism."

Odd -- when conservatives acted to limit the damage done by her husband, she labelled it a "vast right wing conspiracy." When she does the same thing, it is patriotic and grounds for electing her president despite her lack of substantive accomplishments as a Senator -- or in life.

Now the race for money is on -- and speaking of money, will she have lost the support of many of her husband's former supporters? After all, Barack Obama is this year's Howard Dean-style rock star candidate.

Her entrance into the race followed Mr. Obama’s by less than a week, and highlighted the urgency for her of not falling behind in the competition for money, especially in New York, where the battle has already reached a fever pitch.

George Soros, the billionaire New York philanthropist, has made maximum donations in the past to both candidates, for instance, and last week he faced a choice: support Mr. Obama, who created his committee on Tuesday, or stay neutral and see what Mrs. Clinton and others had to say. In his case, the upstart won. Mr. Soros sent the maximum contribution, $2,100, to Mr. Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois, just hours after he declared his plans to run.

“Soros believes that Senator Obama brings a new energy to the political system and has the potential to be a transformational leader,” said Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Mr. Soros.

Mrs. Clinton’s presidential operation is only one day old, but she already finds herself in a breakneck competition against Mr. Obama for fund-raising supremacy in two towns that she and her husband have mined heavily for political gold: New York and Hollywood. Mr. Obama’s entrance into the race has also put up for grabs other groups that are primary targets for Mrs. Clinton, including African-Americans and women.

At this early stage in the nomination fight, securing donations and signing up fund-raisers are among the best ways of showing political strength in a crowded field (seven Democrats and counting). And Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are looking to raise at least $75 million this year alone.

Advisers said yesterday that they had begun corralling donors to build quickly on the formidable $14 million that Mrs. Clinton already had in the bank. They predicted that they would outpace Mr. Obama, though they acknowledged that he is moving impressively to try to match Mrs. Clinton’s national fund-raising network, which has been in the making far longer than his.

Mrs. Clinton faces some fatigue among donors after more than 15 years of Clinton fund-raising, Democratic contributors and strategists said, and some skepticism about whether she can win. Yet she has the Democrats’ most popular rainmaker at her full disposal, former President Bill Clinton, and she has influential friends like the lawyer and power broker Vernon E. Jordan Jr. to help keep African-American donors and others by her side.

On the bright side, I've kept all my "Impeach Clinton" paraphernalia, so I am set for the horrific possibility of another Clinton Presidency.

And maybe she'll bring back that missing silverware.

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