HiIlary Rodham Clinton listens before signing a copy of her book on Tuesday at Barnes and Noble bookstore in New York. Clinton said Tuesday that she and former President Bill Clinton “fully appreciate how hard life is for so many Americans,” seeking to refine remarks she made about the pair being broke when they left the White House while on a high-profile media tour for a new book.WASHINGTON – Gender politics emerged as Hillary Rodham Clinton kicked off a book tour Tuesday that could preview a presidential run when she recalled her refusal to attack Sarah Palin’s selection as the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008.
Clinton’s tour for “Hard Choices” began Tuesday morning in the friendliest possible setting: a book-signing event at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan’s Union Square. Around 1,000 people — some had slept on the sidewalk — let out whoops as she arrived about 20 minutes behind schedule and delivered brief remarks with a patriotic tone reminiscent of the campaign trail.
The former secretary of state said the book was “written for anybody who wants to think about, and learn about, what is happening in the world today — why America matters, and why the world matters to America. And we have a lot of hard choices ahead of us in our country to make it as brave and as strong as it should be. And we have a lot of hard choices to continue to lead the world and solve problems that affect us and the rest of humanity.”
The book tour was scheduled to take Clinton to Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Toronto and Austin. Her frenetic pace and intense media attention resembled a hybrid of celebrity book tour and campaign kickoff, with plenty of hints of a presidential run.
In one of her first promotional interviews, Clinton was asked Tuesday on NBC about a 6-year-old tale she recounted in her book about 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s pick of Palin as his running mate. Clinton said Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s campaign, which had defeated her bid for the nomination that year, asked her to attack Palin.