Hillary Clinton has successfully come through what is a rite of passage for anyone seeking public office in New York - a television appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.
For 20 minutes she smiled and bantered her way through an interview with the man who had spent the past weeks jeering at her refusal to come on his show. Although she admitted she was nervous, she came through the ordeal showing self-confidence and humour and impressed some voters in a state where she is hoping to be elected a senator next November.
But it took a lot of pressure from Letterman, who has frequently made sarcastic jokes about her and her Presidential husband, to land his star guest. For the past month he had badgered her to come on his show, which has about four million viewers, promising not to chase her around the studio with a hammer, but he got nowhere.
Changing tack, he announced last week he was "uninviting" her and called her press secretary, Mr Howard Wolfson, a weasel and a pantywaist. Then a poll in New York showed that 58 per cent believed she should go on the show. That seemed to clinch it and on Tuesday Mr Wolfson phoned Letterman with the news of her acceptance.
For some commentators the nervy Letterman gave Mrs Clinton an easy ride, asking about the White House cat and dog. There were no really tough questions and she easily answered his pop quiz on New York, such as the state bird, the state tree, the highest mountains and how many counties there are.
After Mrs Clinton cracked a joke about her recent move to a house in the suburbs of New York, Letterman said accusingly: "Somebody has been writing material for you, haven't they?"
She said she was coming on the show because she "needed an excuse to get out of a dinner with Donald Trump".
Mrs Clinton got in a barb against her Republican opponent, New York Mayor Mr Rudy Giuliani, for his recent campaign against the homeless.
The latest polls are showing that Mrs Clinton, who has yet to open her campaign formally, is still trailing Mr Giuliani after being ahead when she first announced she intended to run for the seat of Democratic senator Mr Daniel Moynihan, who is retiring.
Mrs Clinton felt confident enough to poke fun at Letterman. When he said that "every idiot in the area is going to drive by honking" outside the new Clinton house in Chappaqua, she asked: "Was that you?"
Referring to a meeting he had once with the Clintons, Letterman recalled that the President seemed "stand-offish" and he wondered why. "He was just so curious as to why you've never made a joke about him," she replied tongue in cheek.
As the show ended to the strains of New York, New York, Letterman kissed Mrs Clinton and presented her with a lawn mower tractor for the new house.
President Clinton visited a New York high school yesterday where a janitor was murdered earlier this week. He called to Boricua high school in Brooklyn to inaugurate a small business development centre. He also met Jesse Jackson, who is promoting a project aimed at getting blacks more access to employment in financial institutions.