Hillary Clinton celebrates first anniversary on the campaign trail

ITHACA, N.Y. - On July 7, 1999, Hillary Rodham Clinton stood nervously before hundreds of reporters, dozens of television crews and photographers and, with Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan at her side, became the only first lady to seek public office.

Exactly a year later, she hopped aboard a bus in Ithaca hauling about 15 reporters, two television crews and four still photographers following her campaign for the U.S. Senate. For the next 20 minutes on the bus, she fielded questions on everything from the man she had just met with the ''carpetbaggers go home'' sign - ''He just muttered. I've noticed that people who hold signs like that mutter a lot'' - to whether she and President Clinton would be vacationing in New York this summer.

''We are. All over the state, but we don't know where yet.''

The transformation from first lady to candidate for the Senate seat fellow Democrat Moynihan is giving up this year had taught her a few lessons.

''I have to try to stop talking in paragraphs,'' she told The Associated Press in an interview Friday at a hotel in Corning on the first anniversary of her campaign. ''But that's very tough for me. I'm nowhere near able to do it. Somebody said, 'You don't talk in paragraphs, you talk in volumes.''

She added: ''There were some rough patches I had to learn to get through. There were some really tough challenges and I had to just be absolutely committed to doing this. I'm not a quitter. I'm pretty much of a persevering type and I had to keep going.''

The rough patches included her embrace of the wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the end of a speech in which Soha Arafat had accused Israeli troops of using poison gas on Palestinians. And, she came out against her husband's offer of clemency for a group of Puerto Ricans imprisoned for terrorist activities - without first consulting New York's Puerto Rican political leaders.

There was also the recent harsh report from independent counsel Robert Ray on her involvement in the firing of employees of the White House travel office and an upcoming Ray report on her and the president's ties to the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. That report is expected before the election.

''It really doesn't worry me,'' she told the AP when asked about the Ray report, calling the investigation ''partisan.''

''I think most people have made up their minds about all of these issues years ago.''

The first lady has also watched her poll numbers in New York fall from the 60 percent range, when talk of her candidacy first started, to the mid-40s, where they have been stalled for months. Her aides said it represented a natural closing of the race. But the polls also show that a third of the New York electorate simply doesn't like her very much and that the carpetbagger issue lingers a half-year after she moved into New York.

''For some people it remains a very big concern, but for other people it's diminished and I sense that all the time,'' Clinton said.

Just the day before, one of those who turned out to see the first lady near Binghamton was Peter Wood, a local contractor. Republican Wood said he would likely vote for Clinton.

''It's nice that she's paying so much attention to upstate New York,'' he said.

In fact, even before the Democratic state convention in late May at which she was formally chosen as the party's candidate, Clinton had managed to visit all 62 of New York's counties.

But to complicate matters, Clinton has had to shift gears mid-campaign to run against a new opponent.

On May 19, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave up his certain claim to the Republican nomination in the face of prostate cancer and a failing marriage. GOP leaders quickly anointed a little-known congressman from Long Island, Rick Lazio, as the substitute. Within a week, polls showed the race to be almost dead even.

''I never believed that this race against either of my opponents would be anything but a tight, tough race,'' she told the AP on Friday. ''I have no illusions about the work I have to do ... but I'm also very confident about the outcome.''

Showing her sharper edge, Clinton and her supporters have already begun to work Lazio over. They launched more than a half dozen television ads in the past three weeks attacking his congressional voting record, including his opposition to using federal funds to pay for poor women's abortions.

The pace has been grueling, Clinton admitted.

''Starting on Senator Moynihan's farm, with more press coverage than I'd ever seen, certainly until the present day a year later, this campaign has been running at full steam,'' she said. ''I've had to take a lot of vitamins in order to keep going every day.''

But Clinton claims to have enjoyed it.

''Mostly, it's been a great experience for me,'' she said.