Rice addresses Huckabee article

CORALVILLE, Iowa - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stuck a toe in the presidential race yesterday, taking strong issue after Republican Mike Huckabee accused the administration of having an "arrogant bunker mentality" on foreign policy.

"The idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous," she said, briefly weighing in on politics during a State Department news conference.

In response, Huckabee said he held Rice in high regard but questioned whether she had read the entire Foreign Affairs journal article in which he made the "bunker mentality" remark.

Speaking to reporters as he traveled between campaign events, Huckabee said he doesn't believe the current administration foreign policy can be characterized as a go-it-alone policy - "and I don't think that was the phrase in my article."

In the Foreign Affairs article, Huckabee wrote: "American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out. The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad."

In recent days, Huckabee's foreign policy credentials have become an issue in the race. Republican rival Mitt Romney has cast him as simply an inexperienced joker on foreign policy matters.

That's in connection with a quip the former Arkansas governor made recently in answer to a question on experience: "I may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night."

- AP

CONCORD, N.H. - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton used family and friends as she appealed to female voters at the start of a two-day campaign swing.

Clinton, in a tight race with Barack Obama in New Hampshire, the first state to vote in a primary election after the Iowa caucuses, was joined by her mother, Dorothy Rodham, her daughter, Chelsea, and State Senate President Sylvia Larsen.

Rodham and Chelsea Clinton didn't address the crowd, but Larsen did.

"I know about glass ceilings," said Larsen, only the third woman to lead the state legislative branch. Larsen said Clinton represented the United States on international trips, worked for children and families and was a major player in her husband's administration.

"As first lady, she was both a strategist and an idealist," Larsen said.

- AP