"The reaction highlighted the dilemma Democratic politicians face trying to satisfy energized activists on the left," the Washington Post reports, "while also cultivating the moderate Democrats and independents whose support is crucial to winning elections."

One influential liberal blog, Daily Kos out of Berkeley, Calif., called Clinton's speech "truly disappointing" and said she should not support the DLC, an organization the blog said has often instigated conflict within the party.

Daily Kos accused Clinton of "working with the DLC to come up with some common party message ... Well, that effort is dead on arrival. The DLC is not a credible vehicle for such an effort."

Rather, Kos complained, if Hillary Clinton "wanted to give a speech to a centrist organization truly interested in bringing the various factions of the party together, she could've worked with NDN."

The NDN is the New Democrat Network, with which Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas is associated.

Toby Chaudhuri, spokesman for the liberal Campaign for America's Future, said: "The DLC is stuck in the past and struggling to hold on to their influence."

Roger Hickey, co-director of CAF, said Clinton had badly miscalculated the sentiment within the Democratic Party and argued that she could pay a price for her DLC association if she runs for president in 2008, according to the Post.

And John D. Podesta, White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said Hillary "was trying to push the DLC back a little bit, but she walked into a crossfire maybe she should have realized was out there."

As NewsMax.com has revealed, the Internet is buzzing with talk that Clinton will vote to confirm President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, in a further move to reinvent herself as a more moderate Democrat.

"Certainly, Hillary is ignoring her base within her own party and reaching out to moderates," NewsMax.com reported.

"The top Democrat's conservative rhetoric has raised more than a few eyebrows in recent months, prompting speculation that her rightward drift is calculated to pick up red state support for a 2008 White House run."

And Edward Klein, author of the best-selling new book "The Truth About Hillary," said her bold move to the center is likely the result of intensive polling that shows she must capture suburban middle-class women and working-class Democrats if she is to have any chance of gaining the White House.

But speaking in Ohio after Clinton's DLC speech, the state's Republican Party chairman Bob Bennett declared: "Senator Clinton is here today to reinvent herself. It's not going to work. Her record and her rhetoric speak for itself."

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