Clinton spending Election Day on US soil

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is spending Election Day on U.S. soil, in sharp contrast to her widely noticed absence during the Democratic convention in September.

Clinton, President Obama's primary opponent in 2008, was on a week-long trip through Asia ahead of the annual summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Russia when her husband and Obama addressed Democratic delegates in Charlotte, N.C. The trip was seen by some as a deliberate effort by one of America's most popular politicians to stay out of Obama's limelight, although her aides said the trip had long been planned.

Clinton's absence from the political scene “didn’t start in Charlotte,” Clinton's longtime adviser Philippe Reines told The New York Times in September. “She’s had to miss everything on that front ever since January 2009.”

The globe-trotting secretary — she's visited more than 110 countries, a record, over the past four years — returned from a trip to the Balkans on Thursday. Clinton has said she would only serve one term as secretary of State and maintains that she has no interest in running for president again in 2016, although she can expect heavy pressure to reconsider from Democratic activists. 

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