First Lady's First Ad

Hillary Rodham Clinton has released the first television advertisement of her New York Senate campaign. The ad, which focuses on the first lady's commitment to issues concerning children and families, will begin airing Thursday across the state.

Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson called the 30-second spot, "a positive, biographical" ad. The commercial doesn't mention Clinton's Republican rival in the race, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, or her husband, the president.

"It never crossed my mind," Clinton said when asked about not featuring the president. She then laughed. "I'm using this opportunity to introduce myself and what I've done for 30 years to the majority of New Yorkers. There's so much that I want to communicate to people ... that the real challenge was to put into 30 seconds everything that I wanted to say."

The ad features a series of black-and-white still photos summarizing her career before and during the White House years. The narrator declares Clinton is "more than a first lady."

The ad is Clinton's first, although the state Democratic Committee ran pro-Clinton TV ads late last year. Giuliani has been running TV ads off and on for several months.

During a stop in the Washington County village of Fort Edward, Clinton also defended herself against an attack from Pat Buchanan, who said she wasn't acting much like a lady.

On Saturday, during a forum for Senate candidates in Buffalo hosted by the New York wing of the Reform Party, Clinton told party members that she would not run on a ticket headed by Buchanan.

In an interview published Wednesday in the Daily News, Buchanan fired back.

"I don't think that kind of inflammatory language comports with being a first lady," he said. "I think the first lady ought to always try to be a lady even if she falls short. She certainly did in this case."

Asked about Buchanan's comments, Clinton said the conservative commentator "has a history of making prejudiced, anti-Semitic and intolerant comments and that's why I said last Saturday that I wouldn't run on a ballot with him. I took the position that anyone who wants to represent all of New York and all New Yorkers should be taking."

"That's why I said last Saturday that I wouldn't run on a ballot with him. I took the position that anyone who wants to represent all of New York and all New Yorkers should be taking," she said.

The comment was the closest Clinton came to criticizing Giuliani, who has been critical of Buchanan but stopped short of refusing to share the party's ticket with him. Since the mayor announced last week he has prostate cancer, Clinton has nearly eliminated criticism of him during her appearances.

Clinton's stop at a tourist center in Fort Edward, where she was greeted by more than 100 local residents, marked the 59th of New York's 62 counties that she has visited. Clinton plans to complet the full tour of the state on Thursday when she makes campaign stops in Clinton County near the Canadian border.

Giuliani, who has traveled much less frequently across the state, planned to be in Rochester on Wednesday night for a college forum.

The first lady's visit took her to heavy Republican country in both Fort Edward and Indian Lake in Hamilton County, the heart of the Adirondacks.

But she picked up some Republican support in Fort Edward. Leonard and Clara Bradway said that while they were Republicans, they planned to vote for Clinton.

"I think she's a very great lady,'' Clara said. "She's endured a lot."

But other Republicans were not impressed.

"She's a threat to New York state,'' said Dwayne Swanson a machine operator from South Glen Falls.