‘However it goes, it’s going to be a Dem win-win’

(Laughs) Well, I really believe in what I’m doing, and I am supported and sustained by the millions of people who believe that I should be the next president.

• A colleague of mine writes in an essay for the magazine this week, “(Clinton) and I are about the same age, an age when most women have become invisible to the rest of society, and there she is, energetic . . . and feisty and capturing the world’s attention.” Is this what’s fueling support for you?

I think there is a sense of identity and a common experience. You know, I know it’s hard for young women to really feel the emotional connection because they didn’t live through what we lived through. When I was a young woman, there were colleges I couldn’t go to, jobs that I couldn’t have ever had, a set of expectations that were pretty much imposed — and so women my age, we have gone through this extraordinary movement. But the true beneficiaries are our daughters and our granddaughters.

• If, at the end of the primaries and caucuses, Senator Obama still has a lead in elected delegates, and superdelegates give you the margin to capture the nomination, will that hurt you in a general election? And will that type of victory alienate the young people who are newly engaged in politics?

Well, I don’t think we should speculate on what’s going to happen … I think we should just proceed with the next-up contests.

• What do you say to those people who say taking this all the way to the convention will hurt the party?

I think this has been good for the party. I think it has brought a lot of people in. Here we are in Mississippi as we do this interview and, I mean, thousands of Democrats are turning out. That’s really exciting, so I feel strongly that what has happened has been good for the party and good for the country. I think it’s going to be win-win, however it turns out.

• How can you win the nomination when the math looks so bleak for you?

It doesn’t look bleak at all. I have a very close race with Senator Obama. There are elected delegates, caucus delegates and superdelegates, all for different reasons, and they’re all equal in their ability to cast their vote for whomever they choose. Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to. This is a very carefully constructed process that goes back years, and we’re going to follow the process.

• If you lose, and can’t be at the top of the ticket, do you think you’d be an asset to Senator Obama as a vice presidential nominee?

When you’re the presidential nominee you get to pick whomever you choose to be on the ticket, and that person gets to say yes or no because, obviously, it’s a very important decision. But we’re not anywhere near that. It’s premature.