New York magazine has a long but very good piece up about Hillary Clinton, based on some first-hand access. Its thesis is that although she lost the nomination race she came away with her own political brand strengthened, after her she found her voice as a champion of the working man and woman:
Ed Rendell remembers vividly the moment
when he saw the transformation with his own two eyes. It was the first
Saturday that Clinton spent campaigning in Pennsylvania, the state over
which Rendell presides as governor. “We went to a Saint Patrick’s Day
parade in Scranton, and the women were treating her like she was Brad
Pitt,” Rendell recalls. “She was connecting with voters who were never
considered part of her base—working-class folks, poorer folks—with
fairly complex and sophisticated ideas that she put into good, simple,
emotion-producing terms.” To Rendell, a retail politician par
excellence, the difference from the Clinton on display a year earlier
was astonishing. “Back then, it seemed like she was afraid of making a
mistake; she was on tenterhooks all the time. But by Pennsylvania, she
was much more comfortable in her skin. She was so good, so up, having
so much fun, she almost reminded me of Hubert Humphrey—a happy warrior.”...Clinton had finally found a theme: the resilient fighter, the underdog, the victim.
The piece also covers the painful issue of how much her husband's lack of discipline contributed to her defeat, brought sharply into focus on the last day of the last primaries, when Bill described the Vanity Fair journalist who had just published a muckraking profile of him in rather unpresidential terms (as a 'scumbag').
By now, as you’d imagine, Hillary’s staff has grown accustomed to outbursts from WJC exquisitely timed to wreak maximum havoc with HRC’s plans. But when I wander backstage, I find her people in a blue funk. “It’s the last day of his wife’s campaign, and he couldn’t keep a lid on his emotions for her sake,” says one aide. “How much more narcissistic can you get?” I ask how Hillary will handle it. “She used to get upset, but at this point, it’s been so bad for so long, I think her attitude is, like, Whatever.”
It strikes me that Hillary will never win a presidential election until she is decoupled from Bill, and not just because of his gaffes. He hinders the development of her own political identity, and prevents people from associating her with the future rather than the past. But I don't think this will happen, if only because, as far as I can tell, she still loves and relies on him.
Finally, this:
It would be hard to overstate the private pessimism that Hillary and Bill Clinton feel about Obama’s general-election prospects.
Comments