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Hillary to announce her candidacy for US Senate today

NEW YORK: Hillary Clinton is scheduled to officially announced her much-anticipated and unprecedented candidacy for the US Senate on Sunday at a huge campaign event outside New York City.

Although she settled all doubts about her candidacy in late December by announcing, "Yes, I intend to run," she has waited to carefully choose when and how she would formally announce.

About 500 democratic leaders and friends have been invited to a college in Purchase, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of New York, and not far from the house the presidential couple bought in Chappaqua.

There, in front of a bank of cameras and with her husband and daughter at her side, Hillary Clinton will ask the people of the state of New York to let her represent them, becoming the first presidential spouse to run for elective office.

A 62-screen television network has been set up to beam the announcement around the state. And her campaign said that at least 24,000 people have already signed up to participate.

Starting Sunday, Clinton will no longer be just the First Lady, she will be a candidate, starting an arduous months-long tour of the state, which will continue until the November election.

During many "preparatory visits," when she held meetings in 40 different countries around the state, she announced the central themes of her likely-campaign: better health coverage and support for public education, especially in cities and neighbourhoods whose schools are inferior.

"I think I have some real work to do to get our and listen and learn from the people of New York and demonstrate that what I'm for is maybe as important, if not more important, than where I'm from," she said in July when she launched her "listening campaign."

Even then, she recognised that the campaign will be long and hard fought, regardless of the outcome. "I have no illusions that it will not be a very difficult and challenging race, but that's what should happen in a democracy," she said.ÑAFP