Clinton Puts Up A New Fight

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Sen. Clinton Discusses 'Sexist' Treatment

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) speaks with The Post's Lois Romano following church services in Bowling Green on Sunday. Clinton addresses what she refers to as the "sexist" treatment she has endured at the hands of the pundits, media and others.

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As she canvassed the state, Clinton seemed to be making an eleventh-hour pitch to audiences well beyond Kentucky. At stop after stop she made the case that she has a better chance of winning the general election because of her strength in larger urban states. She offered a new spin on the arithmetic, pointing out that the states she won would total 300 electoral votes in a general election.

If you didn't know from the delegate count that Clinton was trailing Barack Obama insurmountably and likely facing the end of her long race for president, you might think she was just warming up for a fight. She and her campaign seemed intent on stemming the inevitability of Obama's nomination.

She complained in the interview that the "intensity of my support" was rarely reported, adding, "I think that is a disservice because we have broad coalitions of voters who have voted for me who make up the base of a winning campaign in November that I think want to see this end up with my being nominated."

"We're going to give people in remaining states a chance to vote. We're going to resolve Michigan and Florida," she said.

Over the past few days, Clinton has looked rested and relaxed. No matter how the questions were asked, she resisted any entreaties to reflect on the campaign in a way that might suggest it's over. She let out a throaty laugh when asked in Sunday's interview if she could be put "on the couch" for a few minutes to talk about how she has grown through the campaign. But she quickly said she has been too focused on winning to think about that.

She made it clear at every stop that she has every intention of keeping her campaign going, raising questions about whether she will throw in the towel on June 3, the day of the last primaries, as some Democrats had hoped.

"This race is far from over!" she thundered defiantly to the several hundred die-hard supporters at the high school here in George Clooney's birthplace. "I'm going to make my case and I'm going to make it until there's a nominee, and we're not going to have one today and we're not going to have one tomorrow and we're not going to have one the next day."

Political observers, as well as those who know Clinton best, say she has become a far better candidate over the course of the campaign, and in particular over the past six weeks as she has become more comfortable and confident about her message. Early in her campaign, she was self-conscious about becoming the women's candidate, intent instead on suiting up as commander in chief.

"She has totally found her voice," said a longtime adviser, "but what is so frustrating for her is that there isn't enough runway to get anything done."

No one is quite sure when Clinton hit her stride, when she stopped caring about the polls, when she took her campaign to the people and gave voters a window into her soul.

She said she found her voice in New Hampshire, but then all we heard was Bill's. Some say it was when senior strategist Mark Penn was forced to leave the campaign; he did not put a premium on the personal side of politics. Or it could have simply been when she was losing and so had nothing to lose by being herself.

"The irony is that candidates often find their voices once the pressure is off," said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster and strategist. They are comfortable with "who they are and what they are. It comes at a point in the campaign when the candidate says this is what I want to say and this is who I am. For Hillary Clinton, as you stripped away all the varnish, the core person is the most attractive of all."