Hillary actively weighs bid for While House

WASHINGTON—Democratic jockeying for the White House in 2008 intensified on Sunday with Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh taking the first official step toward a run and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton gauging support among fellow New York lawmakers.
Bayh said he would set up an exploratory committee to raise money and help assess his prospects. He plans to decide over the upcoming holidays whether to seek the Democratic nomination. “We need someone who can deal with the dysfunction here in this city,” said Bayh, who planned appearances Monday in Iowa and next weekend in New Hampshire, two early states on the campaign calendar.
Clinton, who easily won re-election to a second term on Nov. 7, “is reaching out to her colleagues in the New York delegation and asking for their advice and counsel and their support if she decides to make a run,” a top adviser, Howard Wolfson, told The Associated Press. He noted that Clinton had said she would begin actively considering a run after the election. “That process has begun,” Wolfson said. He said he did not know when she might make a decision.
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack already is in the race and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is among numerous other potential rivals who are expected to decide within a few weeks whether to run. National polls have shown Clinton as the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
Bayh acknowledged he faces an uphill battle to make his a household name and become president. “If I can be that individual, so be it,” Bayh said. “Is this a little bit like David and Goliath? Yes. But as I recall, David did OK.” Bayh has pointed toward a run for the White House for months, and had $10.5 million in his Senate campaign bank account as of Sept. 30. The money can be transferred to his exploratory committee for president.
The 50-year-old senator has charted a centrist’s course throughout his political career, including two terms as governor and eight years in the Senate. Bayh was interviewed on “This Week” on ABC.—Agencies