Hillary joined with New York Governor George Pataki at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Lockheed Martin's new "Marine One" helicopter facility. The $37.4 million presidential helicopter plant is based in Oswego, N.Y., in no small part to Sen. Clinton's efforts. In getting Lockheed Martin to win the $6.1 billion contract last year, Hillary beat out Sen. Joe Lieberman and his constituent company, Sikorsky Aircraft. Despite the foreign sounding name, the Connecticut-based Sikorsky is actually the "all-American" company, while Lockheed Martin is British-based.
Hillary was asked whether she or Pataki, himself a potential presidential hopeful for 2008, might ride one of the facility's products to Camp David one day. "I don't know about any predictions, but I do know that whoever is the next president, it's going to be in a helicopter from right here and that makes me very happy," deflected Hill, who has in fact flown in "Marine One" as First Lady.
According to the press account, Lockheed officials said they have hired nearly 800 people to work at the New York plant. Now Hillary only needs to bring in about 311,200 other new jobs to fulfill her 2000 campaign promise to create 200,000 new jobs for New York.
