Clinton: I Didn't Believe the Polls

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), hoarse but elated on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday morning, cackled over the headline in Wednesday's New York Post, which proclaimed her "Back From the Dead."

The New York Democrat -- who's looked grim in recent days -- also said on Wednesday she "honestly doesn't pay a lot of attention" to the polls that had her trailing Sen. Barack Obama in New Hampshire.

"I'm more interested in what I feel -- what I get back from voters," Clinton told "Fox Friends" the day after her three-point victory over Obama (39-36 percent).

"When I got up before dawn yesterday (Tuesday)...[after serving coffee to volunteers and greeting voters] -- I came back in the early afternoon, and I know I was still down, according to the so-called exit polls, but I didn't believe it. I felt really good. I felt that we were going to make a lot of positive advances in New Hampshire and I, you know, wasn't quite sure that I could pull off the significant victory that I did, but I knew that voters were hearing me, they were listening, they were believing that I can do what I said I will do as their president."

On the "Today" show, Clinton said she thinks her comeback started with Saturday night's debate in New Hampshire: "It was the first time that the leading candidates actually were asked some very pointed questions about what we stand for, what we've done to help other people, what our accomplishments are, what we want to do for the future," she said.

"From that moment forward, I really felt like the people of New Hampshire -- standing in, really, for America -- had a chance to make some very careful considerations about each of us, and I'm very grateful for that."

Later, in an interview on Fox Friends, Clinton said she felt the "ground shift" on Saturday night, after "a real debate in a real election."

What about her "emotional" moment on the campaign trail, when her voice appeared to crack?

Clinton said many New Hampshire voters were looking closely at her, and she at them -- "and we really connected...and the incident you refer to, we were all in it together. I was doing my part to try to tell people what I wanted our country to be like -- I don't think of politics as a game, I think of it as a means to an end -- and I don't get up every morning to go out and make a great speech or shake a million hands and then go to bed at night and say, 'Good for you.' I go out to say, 'What can I do for you, how can we make our country what it should be?' and when the woman said to me, 'Well, how do you do that, I really felt touched by that, and I think that we did connect at a very personal level."

Later, in an interview on "Fox Friends," Clinton again mentioned her "interaction" with New Hampshire voters and how "we were connecting."

She said she welcomed the opportunity to "let people know a little more about what motivates me, why I do what I do." She stressed that she cares about trying to help other people.

What did Clinton mean Tuesday night when she talked about finding her "own voice," NBC's Meredith Viera asked her.

Clinton said while she's been focusing on her record and her vision, she knows she hasn't done a very good job of describing what motivated her and what got her up in the morning. She said in New Hampshire she "integrated" who she is as a person as well as what she stands for as a politician.

Later, on Fox Friends, she mentioned the integration of "what I believe and who I am and what I do."