Clinton Retreats on Issue of Men vs. Woman [View All]

CONCORD, N.H., Nov. 2 — Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tangled on Friday over whether women should be treated equally to men in the boxing ring of presidential politics. At the same time, Mrs. Clinton backed away from her “pile-on politics” strategy that portrayed her as the lone woman under assault from the six male candidates at the Democratic debate on Tuesday.

“I don’t think they’re picking on me because I’m a woman; I think they’re picking on me because I’m winning,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference at the Capitol after filing papers to run in the New Hampshire primary.

Then she added, in a reversal of a famous remark she once made about how she did not want to stay home and bake cookies: “I anticipate it’s going to get even hotter — and if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And I’m very much at home in the kitchen.”

Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and Rudolph W. Giuliani also got into a long-distance argument over comments Mr. Obama made in an interview in The New York Times on Friday about his plan to negotiate with Iran about its nuclear program without preconditions.

Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and Mr. Obama, of Illinois, are Democratic opponents; Mr. Giuliani, of New York, is a Republican.

Mrs. Clinton, who leads in most national polls, said she did not think “you promise, without preconditions, for the president to meet with the leaders of antagonistic states.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/us/politics/03campaign.html?ref=us