On Minnesota visit, Clinton tours hospital, plies donors
(AP) - Forget about the paltry 10 electoral votes and late-in-the-game caucuses. Minnesota's political financiers and vaunted health care system drew Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton to Minneapolis Friday.
It was her first visit to Minnesota as a presidential candidate.
Before heading to a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser at the Minneapolis Club, Clinton created a buzz at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, where employees, patients and visitors gathered to see the New York senator and snap her picture with cell-phone cameras.
She toured an orthopedics ward and spoke with a labor-management team working to improve the hospital's services and working environment.
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"It's very exciting to me to see this actually happening," Clinton told a couple dozen employees and managers. "It has to happen. We have no alternative but to try to deal with these tough problems or we're going to continue to see hospitals closed, and we're going to continue to see more uninsured people and we're going to continue to see a lot of people who don't get the care that they need. That's not America."
Clinton had an edge among Minnesota donors in early 2007, the most recent figures available. Democratic heavyweights including health care executive Lois Quam, publisher Vance Opperman and former Sen. Mark Dayton gave her a total of $84,000.
She is running in a Democratic field that includes Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
"My biggest problem with Hillary is that I think she'd be a polarizing figure."
Despite the friendly reception at the hospital, not everyone was persuaded that the former first lady should be the next president.
Nurse Nancy Antin checked her watch as she waited for Clinton's arrival during her break, and said she was still weighing the Democratic candidates.
"I'm not going to get any answers today, but I'd like to see her," she said.
Beverly Thompson, a health unit coordinator in orthopedics who walked Clinton through the hospital's electronic medical records system, also was considering her options.
"My favorite person to be honest is Dennis Kucinich, but I don't think he'll get very far so I'll probably support whoever gets the Democratic nomination," she said, referring to the Ohio representative. "My biggest problem with Hillary is that I think she'd be a polarizing figure."
Clinton last visited the state in October to raise money for then-candidate Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat who won her U.S. Senate race.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)