Blue Spot

Standing ovation for Clinton's return to Washington -- Newsday.com

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton's staff used to obsess over the selection of power ballads and you-go-girl anthems at the candidate's rallies, but she was facing a different kind of music Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

The fallen front-runner -- now simply New York's junior senator -- walked into the Democrats' weekly caucus lunch to a forks-on-glasses serenade and standing ovation from 40 Senate colleagues.

"Glad to be here, my friends, glad to be here," Clinton said as she made her way past a greeting party of interns from her office and well-wishers on the Capitol steps.

Clinton, who will appear at her first joint public rally with presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama in Unity, N.H., Friday, is learning to face life as a senator after seven years as a candidate and candidate-in waiting.

She took her first steps toward the commonplace Tuesday afternoon, telling caucus members she planned to be an active advocate for their agenda and promising to campaign for Democratic candidates around the country if called upon.

"I am rolling up my sleeves and getting back to work," she told reporters.

Earlier, reporters asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) if sexism played a part in Clinton's defeat. "Is there sexism? Probably so. Is it responsible for the defeat? I really wouldn't have all of the information to know that. But I do think that being a woman had a positive upside in the campaign -- probably offset by more sexism, I don't know."

Clinton was escorted into the meeting by New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer, and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), and sat through a Schumer introduction that praised her perseverance.

"It was genuinely positive and heartfelt," Schumer said of her reception. "That's because people knew what she had been through."

Labels: Hillary, Senate