Despite the repetition of at least one big lie ("I'm so happy being senator from New York...I love my life. I love my job. I want to see it through...The people of New York took a chance on me, and I'm well aware of that...I said I wouldn't run, and I really mean it.  I'm not going to run.") Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton somehow remains popular with liberal New Yorkers and would be likely to win a third senate term.

As a constituent who has watched her senate progress closely since she carpet-bagged her way to victory on her husband's coattails and in conjunction with the illness-related withdrawal of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani from the 2000 senate race, it is obvious that Hillary's popularity has little to do with senatorial accomplishment.  New York's junior senator, therefore, still has a pretty good chance to be elected president.

Conservative New Yorkers -- an endangered species -- don't care much for our other liberal senator either. Nonetheless, Charles Schumer deserves props for being on the job day after day, year after year.  Credit is also due Schumer for working hard to engage constituents, wearing out his media welcome at times with often pointless, self-aggrandizing weekly Sunday press conferences.

Guardian Angels International founder/leader and conservative NYC radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa lumps Chuck Schumer, whom he has dubbed him "The Schlepper", in with other "lens lice" (visual media opportunists). 

This is actually somewhat of a compliment coming from one of the all-time great flamboyant, self-styled PR guys who places himself in that same media attention-craving category. Incidentally, the red-bereted Sliwa is also known to schlep research material and yellowing newspapers around with him in case he is asked, at a moment's notice, to fill in for another on-air personality.

Spending time in New York City, Hillary has learned to be somewhat of a schlepper herself.  Albeit in a far more mid-Western/Apalachian style, during her recent campaign visits to the nooks and crannies of the USA she kept schlepping along, visiting one greasy spoon, regional food joint and tavern after another in an effort to make friends and be folksy. 

However, unlike Barak Obama, who somehow made grabbing a knish for the first time in his life look natural, every attempt by Sen. Clinton to be all things to all people makes her look phony and self-serving.  You've got to wonder whether world leaders and their wives got the same impression of the First Lady when she and Bill visited their countries. 

Then there are those claims about the depth and breath of her diplomatic experience and the sniper fire endured in the process.  The following bullet points are from FactCheck.org:

• Clinton claims to have "negotiated open borders" in Macedonia to fleeing Kosovar refugees. But the Macedonian border opened a full day before she arrived, and her meetings with Macedonian officials were too brief to allow for much serious negotiating.

• Clinton's activities "helped bring peace to Northern Ireland." Irish officials are divided as to how helpful Clinton's actions were, and key players agree that she was not directly involved in any actual negotiations.

• Clinton has repeatedly referenced her "dangerous" trip to Bosnia. She fails to mention, however, that the Bosnian war had officially ended three months before her visit -- or that she made the trip with her 16-year-old daughter and two entertainers.

• Both Bill and Hillary Clinton claim that Hillary privately championed the use of U.S. troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda. That conversation left no public record, however, as U.S. policy was explicitly to stay out of Rwanda, and officials say that the use of U.S. troops was never considered.

• Clinton's tough speech on human rights delivered to a Beijing audience is as advertised, though Clinton herself has been dismissive of speeches that aren't backed by solutions.

As a result of her lack of diplomacy and diplomatic experience -- let alone a thin resume of overall public service accomplishments -- Hillary going worldwide as Secretary of State is not a confidence-builder for those of us who hope and pray that an inexperienced president will somehow be able to make good decisions about our world presence and international relations.

By the same token, however, it would be a welcome change for New Yorkers to have two full-timers who take the job of being our senators seriously enough to schlep to work everyday.  With Hillary out of the Senate we would have a chance to elect a more qualified, if not a more conservative senator the next time around.

Wherever Hillary ends up, expect her popularity with liberals to soar during Clinton Administration III.

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