In what must have been a hastily put together opening sketch for last Saturday's “Saturday Night Live,” the parody of an overly subdued Chris Matthews (played by Darrell Hammond) interviewing Senator Hillary Clinton (Amy Poelher) was a humorous sendoff on the formal announcement that morning that she was running for president.

Ms. Poehler's portrayal of the junior senator from New York spinning out of control over the perceived slight by Sen. Barak Obama (D-Ill) moving forward on his own run may have drawn the most laughs. The most biting, if not telling points, were made at the beginning of the piece. Mr. Hammond, who usually portrays the MSNBC “Hardball” host as overly zealous and sputtering, was overly sheepish and talked about what he had to do to get Senator Clinton on his show. He pointed out how he not only had to stay away from certain subjects, but that some questions were written by the senator's aides.

That jab was an all too common perception of how Mrs. Clinton is not only perceived, but what, in essence, may be her greatest obstacle heading into 2008. The race for the presidency over the last 46 years has been the equivalent of mindless cattle calls. Where candidates not only flip pancakes at Rotary club breakfasts and do hundreds of small town meetings, but press the flesh and answer numerous, repetitive, pointed questions from the press.

The former First Lady has not been the most accessible person when it comes to the latter. In what will be a series of town hall meetings and forums from now until at least New Hampshire and Iowa, Mrs. Clinton will be in slightly uncharted waters for her. One only has to look at her run for re-election against former Yonkers' Mayor John Spencer in the fall, to know that she tries to do her best to keep her exposure to the press at a minimum, beyond what even one would think her Secret Service detail would require.

Mayor Spencer had only a limited chance to debate Mrs. Clinton at the time. More importantly it also limited the chance of the state's press corps to ask her tough questions with follow ups on everything from whether she would guarantee that she would not run for the presidency in the middle of a second term to her vote in support of intervention in Iraq.

That all has to change if her quest for the presidency is going to even have a chance. Candidates for president, especially pre-caucus and primary, are fair game on the campaign trail. If they shield themselves from such open exposure, as Sen. Clinton has done, they lose.

If she wants to be president she now needs to press the flesh and meet the press.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com