The guessing game over whether Mrs Hillary Clinton will run for the Senate in New York reached epic proportions yesterday as the First Lady arrived in the city for the first time since her future political intentions became a national obsession.
But even as Mrs Clinton embarked on a round of speeches, school visits and dinners with New York's movers and shakers, polls showed some slowing in her political momentum.
A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, taken last Friday, found that her favourable rating has dropped to 53 per cent from 63 per cent in late January, when the idea that she might campaign in New York was first floated. Another survey, to be released by the Marist Institute, will also show that her lead over a possible Republican opponent, the New York Mayor, Mr Rudolf Giuliani, has narrowed.
The American media are drooling at the prospect of Mrs Clinton going toe to toe with Mr Giuliani, one of the US's most visible mayors and a former district attorney who has garnered national attention for his relentless campaign to clean up New York. Apart from battling criminals, Mr Giuliani has taken on jaywalkers, street vendors and drunken drivers.
Some pundits foresee trouble for Mrs Clinton if she runs. "The closer she gets to an actual candidacy, the more her popularity fades," Dick Morris wrote in the New York Post. "When you get your face on the cover of Time and Newsweek and your ratings drop, something is wrong."
Her flirtation with the possibility of a Senate race triggered a run on tickets for a fundraiser at the Plaza Hotel.