Hoping to firm up her support among women and hard-core liberals, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., announced Tuesday that Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland will be co-chair of her presidential campaign with Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.
“She has literally paved the way for me and countless other women who now serve in the Congress,” Clinton said of Mikulski in an e-mail statement.
Mikulski’s support will help Clinton reach out to pro-abortion rights women in the Democratic primaries, Washington political consultant Rosemary Reed said.
“She’s sort of the dean of pro-choice women in the Senate,” Reed said. “I can’t think it’s a bad thing for Hillary Clinton.”
Reed said it’s not clear whether Mikulski appeals to voters beyond those concerned with abortion rights.
“If I were to call my sister who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, or my other sister who lives in Wichita, I don’t think they’d go, ‘Oh, hey! Barbara Mikulski,’ ” Reed said.
Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report, a national political magazine, said Clinton “looks at Democratic women as a natural constituency, and she’s going to maximize that any way she can. She feels the same way about African-Americans.”
Clinton has raised millions of dollars for her presidential campaign, but Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has won favor with Democratic voters by running to the left of her, especially on the Iraq war.
Obama opposed the war from the beginning, while Clinton voted to authorize the invasion four years ago and held off calling for a phased withdrawal until this year.
Many consider Mikulski, a longtime supporter of abortion rights, as one of the Senate’s most ardent liberals.
“I believe Hillary will bring us together around the smart solutions to America’s problems,” Mikulski said in a statement e-mailed to the news media.
In 1987, Mikulski became the first female Democrat to win election to the Senate in her own right. Several women before Mikulski became senators when they replaced husbands who died while in office.
Mikulski also has a strong political organization in Maryland, which could be an asset in next year’s primary, Duffy said.
Both parties have crammed their state primaries and caucuses into the early part of 2008, which puts power in the hands of local politicians who can deliver votes, Duffy said.
