From the NYT

So every speech she gave in Indiana on Friday and Saturday had the same topic sentence. “My campaign is about jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs,” she said, always to thunderous applause.

In Bloomington, she promised to bring nothing less than economic revolution to the decaying Rust Belt. “You’ve heard of white-collar jobs and blue-collar jobs,” she informed her Fort Wayne audience, setting up a line about how efforts to address global warming and other environmental problems could spawn new industries. “We’re going to create green-collar jobs.”

At a union hall in burned-out, garbage-strewn Gary, Mrs. Clinton began her early-evening speech looking wan. But as she began talking about magnets and wheel bases, her eyes grew rounder and her small hands danced with expressive energy. She sounded as if, once she is done with the presidency business, she might like to try the steel business, joining the ladies in the audience wearing “Women of Steel” T-shirts.

Since the race started, Mrs. Clinton has cycled through several political personas: the battle-tested White House veteran, the fighter, the girl — her word — tougher than any boy. Now she is the Dream Boss: the one who will give you a job, provide health insurance, but also understand just how hard you work and the mundane details of what you do. Mrs. Clinton has a reputation as an effective listener, and she is finally putting that skill to full use in her appearances, showing her audiences how closely she tracks their concerns.

“Our politics has become too abstract, too generalized,” she explained in the interview, without mentioning her opponent’s grandly themed speeches.

“Most people get a lot of meaning in their life from the work that they do,” she said. “People want to be seen, they want to be appreciated, they want to be acknowledged.”

By LIZ SIDOTI

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton now leads John McCain by 9 points in a head-to-head presidential matchup, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable than Democratic rival Barack Obama. Obama and Republican McCain are running about even.

The survey released Monday gives the New York senator and former first lady a fresh talking point as she works to raise much-needed campaign cash and persuade pivotal undecided superdelegates to side with her in the drawn-out Democratic primary fight.

Helped by independents, young people and seniors, Clinton gained ground this month in a hypothetical match with Sen. McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting. She now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent.

Both Democrats were roughly even with McCain in the previous poll about three weeks ago.