Clinton's war stance unpopular with significant number in party

    It wasn't so much the nine votes. It was the applause that told the story.

    Hillary Rodham Clinton's continued refusal to call for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq has left her with two long-shot opponents challenging her for the Democratic Senate nomination this year. More problematic is the discomfort the stance is causing among many of her supporters.

    That was evident at a gathering of the state's Democratic Rural Conference earlier this month at a hotel on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca.

    The conference is made up of party activists from the 41 counties of the state that are not part of the New York City region or the state's more urban upstate counties. In other words, the more conservative Democrats of New York state.

    Featured at the event was a straw poll that Saturday of delegates for the various statewide races, including U.S. Senate.

    Clinton spoke to the delegates Friday night and, as expected, received a rousing welcome. It didn't hurt, of course, that state Comptroller Alan Hevesi pumped up the crowd by calling on the delegates to work hard for her re-election.

    "We have to get out and make sure she is re-elected to that two-year term," Hevesi said in a joke not lost on an audience well aware that Senate terms run six years and that Clinton leads national polls among potential 2008 Democratic presidential contenders.

    But the next morning, the delegates got to hear from one of Clinton's anti-war challengers, labor activist Jonathan Tasini. He got a very warm welcome.