It was billed as a cosy "at-home with Hillary", but the chintzy sofa and family photographs were nothing more than studio props.
It was billed as a cosy "at-home with Hillary", but the chintzy sofa and family photographs were nothing more than studio props.
Banking that, in the era of YouTube and myspace.com, the internet will be an influential and critical component of the modern presidential race, the senator for New York hosted the first of her three live webcasts on Monday night.
An aide read aloud questions during the 30-minute broadcast in which Mrs Clinton defended her position over Iraq, condemned the Bush administration for its handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and explained why Americans should send a woman to the White House.
On the latter, she said: "We won't know until we try . . . Every time we've broken any barriers that's always required people to take a leap of faith because it hasn't been done before, but I am fully confident that there are many women in our country who are equipped and ready to lead.
"I do think it's important that we demonstrate that women are capable of serving at the highest level of our government."
Iraq proved a slightly thornier topic.
Despite voting for the war, she said she now believed that the number of US troops should be halved and conditions should be placed on the Iraqi government.
She added: "I do think we should threaten to cut funding for the Iraqi army, the Iraqi police and security for the Iraqi leaders.
"I don't understand why this president has given them such a blank cheque."
She also claimed that al Qaeda did not establish a foothold in Iraq until after the US-led invasion.
There were no earth-shattering revelations, but there were a few insights in to the private tastes of the former first lady.
Her favourite films, for instance, she listed as The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and Out of Africa.
The internet is inexpensive, allows control of a political message and can target groups of voters, according to experts.
Ira Teinowitz, who writes about political advertising for Advertising Age, said: "You've got everybody imitating what happened four years ago, when Howard Dean led the way."
And it helps Senator Clinton with a peculiar issue she faces: the role of her husband, added Mr Teinowitz.
"If you have a press conference, what do you do with Bill?" he said.
"You can avoid those issues on the web. She's sitting there talking, and no one is sitting there saying, Where the hell is Bill?'"
Joe Trippi, the political strategist who helped former presidential candidate Howard Dean exploit the internet successfully during the run-up to the last election, said: "She's taken a lot of hits on the blogosphere for not being net-centric enough, or even interested in them, so I think it's clearly a big public relations barrage right at the beginning that says I'm going to be playing here. Let's start over."
Mrs Clinton was due to host a similar internet chat last night, immediately before the president's State of the Union address, and the final one will take place tonight.
