Guests who attended New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's strategy session / fund raiser Sunday night at her Chappaqua, N.Y., mansion say that both she and her husband repeatedly hinted that she was ready to run for president in 2004.

Mr. Clinton kicked off a wave speculation by identifying the "two stars" of the Democratic Party as his wife and Gen. Wesley Clark - a major snub to the nine announced Democratic candidates currently seeking the White House.

Moments later the ex-president pointedly announced, "We might have another candidate or two jumping into the race," according to accounts gathered by the New York Times.

During a dinner that was purportedly held to build "donor maintenance" for her 2006 Senate re-election bid, Sen. Clinton kept the focus instead on the White House by urging her supporters to stay on board "for my next campaign, whatever that may be."

The Clintons' antics convinced at least one major backer that Hillary's public pledges that she won't enter next year's race don't mean much.

"I was sitting next to her last night, and I didn't get the impression that she had pulled the trigger in her mind" for or against a national campaign, John Catsimatidis told the Times. "Some people might have been left with the impression that there's always a possibility. I was."

John Catsimatidis heads the Gristedes supermarket chain and has contributed millions of dollars to Mr. Clinton's presidential campaigns, as well as his presidential library in Little Rock.

One of Sen. Clinton's chief cheerleaders, Democratic Party spinmeister Ann Lewis, offered guests an unabashed presentation of Hillary's potential assets as a 2004 candidate.

"What I was trying to walk through – she is the most popular, credible leader among that group of voters most important to the Democratic party," Lewis told the Times.

But she didn't mention several recent polls showing President Bush defeating Sen. Clinton by 7 points. "It was not useful" to do so, Lewis explained.

After repeatedly dangling the prospect of a 2004 bid before her guests, Sen. Clinton denied she meant to encourage speculation. "I try to be careful – but being careful was misunderstood, or misheard," she told the Times.

For his part, a spokesman for ex-President Clinton claimed somewhat bizarrely that he was referring to himself when he predicted that another candidate of two might still enter the race.

"He meant Wesley Clark, and temporarily forgot about the 22nd Amendment," Clinton flak Jim Kennedy said.

Eyewitnesses to the Clintons' comments, however, begged to differ.

"[We] were not hallucinating," insisted one guest, who asked not to be named. "In the climate of heightened interest in a candidacy, they know they need to be extra, extremely careful with their language."

Sunday's strategy session wasn't the first time the former first lady has dangled the possibility that she might try to unseat President Bush. Asked about a 2004 run during a television interview in London two months ago, Clinton said, "You never know what might happen."

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