Hillary Clinton to attend tonight's debate at Hofstra University

:D

Hillary is smart she will have alot of power if Obama wins. She may become the most powerful senator in US history.

Though, I still hope that some day she will be our first woman president.

50 years from now everyone having decent Healthcare in this country will be attributed to her 20 years fighting for it.

I don't think that there will be money for a long time to expand entitlement programs. We are too deep in the hole.

which Kennedy heads - I hope he will be well enough to write the legislation. He has been the one who has fought for this for nearly 50 years. He was involved with medicare, medicaid, and SCHIP. HRC mostly worked on healthcare for a few years in the 1990s, then got Bill to put SCHIP funding in the budget, and had - like every candidate - a healthcare proposal.

If Kennedy steps down from that chair, the likely new chair is Dodd, with the next highest seniority. If he prefers to keep the Banking Committee or take the SFRC, the next in line is Harkin, who currently heads the Agriculture Committee.

Here is the list:
Edward Kennedy (MA)
Christopher Dodd (CT)
Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Hillary Rodham Clinton(NY)
Barack Obama (IL)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Sherrod Brown (OH)

I don't think Mikulski or Reed head a committee, so even if all those with committees defer, it still doesn't go down to Clinton.

or Lyndon Johnson. I really don't see any current Senator beating them. HRC is a second term Senator who does not chair a committee.

As to having Obama's ear, there are likely other Senators who he is closer to starting with Dick Durbin and John Kerry. Durbin is the assistant majority leader and Kerry may well chair the SFRC, while being the third Democrat in seniority on the Finance committee. Kerry's range of expertise and his ability to problem solve might make him the most likely to really be the most powerful Senator in say 2010. (You might notice that Obama took Kerry's Small Business legislation introduced last month as a major part of his economic plan - with very little change. Obama also took Kerry's re-insurance of catastropic costs as part of his healthcare plan. Not to mention nearly everyone now speaks of fighting terror as Kerry did in 2004 and before. The current Iraq plan is a variation of the ideas behind Kerry/Feingold. oh - Kerry was the entire Congressional delegation to Bali and per Gore is the best in the Senate on the environment. So, he likely had the biggest influence on current Democratic positions - though he rarely gets the credit in the media.)

Barack's got even more pressure to do well now.

She has been doing a wonderful job of representing Obama.