What does Hillary want? She doesnt know

WASHINGTON: As Hillary Clinton found her last slender hopes of winning the Democratic presidential nomination dashed, she finally herself asked the question pundits had been posing: "What does Hillary want?"

But the vanquished lady who like victor Obama wanted to script her own history as the first woman occupant of the White House did not really answer her own question, as she addressed a crowd of supporters Tuesday in New York.

Instead she replied with a cryptic "what I have always fought for," as she listed some policy goals and asked her supporters to tell her by e-mail on what she should do next.

"I want to end the war in Iraq," she said. "I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential, and I want for the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected and heard and to no longer be invisible."

The crowd outside chanted  "Denver, Denver" urging her to go all the way to the party's convention in August, where the party candidate will be formally chosen. Clinton's supporters inside responded with shouts of "Yes, she will!  Yes, she will!"

"In the coming days, I'll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way," Clinton said.

But she did not concede. In fact to the surprise of many her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, introduced her to the roaring crowd as "the next president of the United States of America!"

Clinton herself went on to repeat her argument to the super delegates about her greater electability saying she had won nearly 18 million votes and carried "the popular vote with more votes than any primary candidate in history."

"Even when the pundits and naysayers proclaimed week after week that this campaign was over, you kept on voting," she said, adding that she won most of the swing states that would be needed to push a Democratic ticket to the 270 electoral votes to win the presidential election.

"I am committed to uniting our party so we move forward stronger and more ready than ever to take back the White House this November," she said.

She came out holding the hands of her daughter, Chelsea, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and spoke nostalgically about a campaign that had taken her "from the hills of New Hampshire to the hollows of West Virginia and Kentucky."

"So many people said this race was over five months ago in Iowa, but we had faith in each other," she said. "I will carry your stories and your dreams with me every day for the rest of my life."

"We are resilient, we are courageous, we embrace all of our people," she said in a combative speech not far from the Statue of Liberty and the site of the World Trade Centre.

"When we face our challenges together, there is no barrier we can't overcome, no dream we can't realize, nothing we can't do if we just start acting like Americans again."

Throughout the crowd, small knots of women with "Hillary" buttons furiously recounted what they deemed the sexism and slights of the campaign, some still angry at Obama for dismissing Clinton in an early debate as "likable enough."

One man waved a homemade "Hillary or Nobody" sign. One supporter interrupted her speech by shouting, "You're an amazing woman!"

Her supporters may not have read the writing on the wall, but for the woman who had famously said, "It aint over till it is over", it seemed to be finally over.