His big regret: not acting in Rwanda

Bill Clinton said that Hillary had wanted the United States to intervene in Rwanda. (Jason Reed/reuters)

NEWTON, Iowa - The question to Bill Clinton was a good one: What decisions that you made as president did Hillary Clinton disagree with?

At first, the former president, stumping for his wife before several hundred people at an YMCA yesterday, talked about mistakes on healthcare and briefly discussed welfare reform. And then, in a more somber tone, he explained that she had wanted the United States to intervene in Rwanda in 1994, when hundreds of thousands of people died in a genocide that lasted just a few months.

Clinton has talked repeatedly about how not acting in Rwanda was one of his biggest regrets.

Had he listened to his wife, he said, history might have been different.

"I believe if I had moved we might have saved at least a third of those lives," he said. "I think she clearly would have done that."

SCOTT HELMAN

Husband says Clinton is hardly calculating

AMES, Iowa - At an earlier appearance yesterday, Bill Clinton harkened back to the days when he and Hillary were dating to make the case that she's not a calculating politician who has had her eye on the presidency for years.

When they met at Yale Law School and started "going together," Clinton said he recognized his new girlfriend as one of the great talents of their generation.

He told her to "dump me," and then go work at a big law firm in New York or Chicago as a springboard to run for office.

Before several hundred people at Iowa State University, he recounted that the young Hillary Rodham laughed and answered, "Oh, first I love you and second I'm never going to run for anything."

When she eventually moved to Arkansas and married him, "I was a defeated candidate for Congress with a $26,000 salary and $42,000 campaign debt," he said. "Now if she were half as calculating as some people have said, that's a really bad way to run for president."

The version of their romance Hillary Clinton described in her autobiography, "Living History," is actually rather different. She describes how she turned down his marriage proposals countless times, because she was confused about her future, and scared of commitment in general "and of Bill's intensity in particular."

MARCELLA BOMBARDIERI

CNN cancels Boston Democratic debate

CNN confirmed yesterday it has canceled a Democratic debate next Monday in Boston. So if you're a fan of presidential debates, best get your fill this week.

The back-to-back face-offs in Iowa sponsored by The Des Moines Register - the Republicans tomorrow and the Democrats on Thursday - will be the last ones before the Jan. 3 caucuses, barring one miraculously materializing.

The planned forum, also sponsored by Politico and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, was called off "due to the early scheduling of the Iowa caucuses," CNN said.

FOON RHEE

Polls indicate Huckabee, Obama are gaining ground

Two new polls out last night generally agree on the state of the presidential race nationally.

Mike Huckabee, continuing his remarkable rise, is in a statistical tie with Rudy Giuliani on the Republican side. And Barack Obama is closing in on Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side.

In the CNN/Opinion Research survey, Giuliani has 24 percent, Huckabee 22 percent, Mitt Romney 16 percent, John McCain 13 percent, and Fred Thompson 10 percent.

In the New York Times/CBS News poll, Giuliani has 22 percent, Huckabee 21 percent, Romney 16 percent, and McCain and Thompson 7 percent each.

Among Democrats, CNN's survey puts Clinton at 40 percent, Obama at 30 percent, and John Edwards at 14 percent. The Times/CBS poll has Clinton at 44 percent, Obama at 27 percent, and Edwards at 11 percent.

One interesting finding in the Times survey: while 44 percent of Democrats said Bill Clinton's involvement made it more likely they would support his wife, only 1 percent said they would be swayed by Oprah Winfrey's support for Obama, despite the thousands who showed up for rallies over the weekend.

FOON RHEE