Not all of Hillary Clinton’s upstate political successes are of the whistle-stop tour, farm-policy-literate variety. Forgive the long block-quote from today’s New York Times article on her relationship with upstate Fortune 500 company, Corning, which has traditionally backed Republicans:
And in April 2004, Mrs. Clinton began a push to persuade the Chinese government to relax tariffs on Corning fiber optics products, inviting the Chinese ambassador to her office and personally asking President Bush for help in the matter. One month after the beginning of that ultimately successful effort, Corning’s chairman, James Houghton, held a fund-raiser at his home that collected tens of thousands of dollars for her re-election campaign.
– Tom McGeveran