From the Los Angeles Times
Celebrities join Clinton on her 60th
The candidate had help from Billy Crystal and Elvis Costello celebrating her birthday -- and raising money for her campaign. By Glenn Thrush Newsday
October 26, 2007
NEW YORK The key numbers from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) birthday extravaganza Thursday night were 60 -- her age -- and $1.5 million, the approximate amount of cash she raked in for her presidential campaign, thanks to entertainers Elvis Costello and Billy Crystal.
The Clintons have always blurred the lines between personal, political and financial, and Thursday night's party at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre, with 3,000 paying guests, was perhaps the crowning example.
"Happy Birthday, Mrs. President," crooned Costello, echoing Marilyn Monroe's serenade of President Kennedy.
Clinton, standing under three giant pictures of herself, took the stage with a dig at Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani, the New York Yankees fan who said last week that he was rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. "I have been a fan -- and I remain a fan -- of the Yankees, no changes, no looking to curry favor with anybody else," said Clinton, turning the tables on the former mayor, who has derided her loyalty to the team as political pandering.
Crystal made repeated references to Giuliani's baseball flip-flop, saying it was like Ann Coulter declaring she's kosher. Bill Clinton, standing next to his daughter, Chelsea, introduced his wife by recalling their meeting at Yale Law School 37 years ago.
"She was just 23 when we met -- the poor child didn't know any better," he joked.
The campaign's birthday celebration offered Hillary Clinton an opportunity to reach out to older women, a group that's proven surprisingly Hillary-phobic.
"Women over 60 are going to be a tough sell for her," said Hunter College politics professor Andrew Polsky. "This is a generation of women who came of age before the era of feminism, and a higher percentage of them spent their lives as housewives who didn't have a career. To them, she's had an untraditional life and an untraditional career, and that makes them uncomfortable with her."
A New York Times survey in July found that her popularity decreased as women grew older. Nearly half of women over 64 had a negative view of Clinton, compared with about a quarter of women under 45.
Clinton seemed genuinely moved by her husband's introduction and choked up when acknowledging her 88-year-old mother.
The event was followed by a second, more exclusive gathering at the Russian Tea Room, where the Clintons greeted about 100 friends and top donors.