Clinton stirs Chicago crowd at fundraiser

Trumpeting her familiar campaign themes and raising money for the stretch run, Hillary Clinton stopped in her home state long enough to fire up a raucous crowd of supporters Tuesday evening in downtown Chicago.

The Democratic presidential hopeful drew round after round of applause as she vowed, as she does at nearly every campaign stop, to introduce universal health care, fight global warming, bring troops home from Iraq, get rid of the No Child Left Behind Act and end "the era of cowboy diplomacy."

Clinton's appearance at Tuesday's fundraiser came after a day of campaigning in Iowa. There, most polls show her locked in a virtual three-way dead heat with Barack Obama and John Edwards just two weeks before that state's first-in-the-nation presidential preference vote.

Obama, Illinois' junior senator, enjoys heavy support from Democratic officials throughout the state and, in a recent Chicago Tribune/WGN poll, leads Clinton by 50 percent to 25 percent among Illinois voters.

But Clinton, a Park Ridge native, made it clear early in the campaign that she would concede nothing in Illinois. She has held her own in fundraising here. Campaign officials told the crowd that the $1 million raised at two Chicago events Tuesday put the New York senator over the $120 million mark raised nationally since Jan. 1. Through the end of October, she had raised $2.7 million of her $90.945 million total in Chicago, which stood as her fourth-most productive money-raising city behind New York, Washington and Los Angeles.

In subtle reference to Obama, Clinton told an estimated 850 supporters at Chicago's Hyatt Regency that while some people "hope" for change, she knows that the only way to effect change is through the sort or hard work she said she's done all her life -- from her days of a socially active youth to her work in the U.S. Senate.

Clinton hit most heavily her pledge to institute universal health care. Acknowledging that she fell short of the goal during her husband's administration, she said "but I have to tell you I'm proud of the work we did. Some people said 'Well, she won't be talking about health care anymore.' Oh, yes, I will."

The Democratic front-runner in national polls since she announced her candidacy, Clinton in recent weeks has seen her lead slip in Iowa, New Hampshire and national polls. Jack Franks, a state representative from Woodstock and a co-chairman of Clinton's Illinois campaign, said before Clinton spoke Tuesday that he's not concerned by shifting poll numbers.

"We've always known that it would be a close race," Franks said, "We understood that from the beginning. But a few months ago, she was 25 points down in Iowa, and now look at her; that's what the story line ought to be."