Over the past six months, Hillary Clinton has experienced the dilemma of modern womanhood the hard way. To her admirers, she is an embattled heroine right out of " Backlash," Susan Faludi’s best seller about the counterattack against feminism. Other voters, particularly older ones, are uneasy with the notion that Hillary is ambitious– not just for her husband, but for herself. This has made Hillary an easy target for GOP attacks. One right-wing fund-raising letter calls her “a radical feminist who has little use for religious values or even the traditional family unit.” An article in the conservative American Spectator says she endorses a right of children to sue parents and has lent support to an assortment of left-wing causes. With Hillary’s negative ratings slowly raising, both Clintons have stated unequivocally that Hillary would not serve in a Clinton cabinet. But Mrs. Clinton’s recent attempts to soften her image, to present herself as mother and homemaker as well as career woman, have only invited Republican mockery. " Hillary Clinton in an apron is like Michael Dukakis in a tank," says Republican consultant Roger Ailes.
In some ways, Hillary is better known to the public than her husband. Her name has become a code word, with different meanings for different people. For twentysomething women, “to do a Hillary” means offering a husband or male friend useful advice on life’s hard choices. Less flattering is a New Yorker cartoon of a businesswoman searching for just the right jacket in an upscale store. " Nothing too Hillary," the woman tells the salesperson.
The woman behind the public image, though, can be hard to find. Throughout her husband’s ordeal during the primaries, she was the stoic pro, unflappable and focused. But inwardly, she admits, she was shocked by the media onslaught. Occasionally, fear or bitterness creeps into her choice of words. She recites this nursery rhyme to describe how she felt on the campaign trail: “As I was standing in the street as quiet as can be / A great big ugly man came up and tied his horse to me.” Among Clinton’s inner circle Hillary was the first to realize the Clintons had achieved a kind of celebrity, and that it wasn’t necessarily an honor. After all the questions about the draft and infidelity drove down Clinton’s polls in New Hampshire, the campaign staff was surprised to drive up to a packed rally in Nashua. An aide marveled that perhaps all the polls were wrong. Why would so many people be there if Clinton was losing support? With more bite than humor, Hillary responded: " You don’t know why they’re here. They may just want to see the freak show."
Mrs. Clinton has had to change her image no fewer than three times during the course of the campaign. She insists she has done nothing different, that the “reductionist” impulses of the sound-bite culture have unfairly defined her. But she has evolved from a stand-by-your-man wife in New Hampshire, to a feminist crusader in New York and Illinois, to her current look: that of a more traditionally supportive wife. The contortions have taken their toll. Today’s Hillary is a burned-out, buttoned-up automaton compared with the vibrant woman who strode purposefully onto the national scene last January. Interviewed on the eve of the first revelations about her husband, Hillary was all spunk and fire, ready to change the world. She was also quite dewy-eyed over how the media and the public would treat the secrets of her married life, which she knew had to come out. Talking to her then, one got the feeling she thought it would be like national therapy–a session or two on the couch, and that would be it.
Seeing the Clintons in separate back-to-back interviews points up the contrast between them. He welcomes a visitor in the book-lined den of the Arkansas governor’s mansion, settling in for the better part of an hour. He chats about his weekend, the baseball game he saw, how daughter, Chelsea, 12, has just discovered the phone, his hoarseness, his struggle to lose weight. He gamely answers a lot of questions he’s heard before. He is, plainly put, a good sport. Hillary is not. At least not anymore. She parcels out her time in 20-minute car rides to this or that event. There’s no small talk. An interview is an endurance contest. Ask a question, she’ll answer it. But she doesn’t have to like it. It is a glimpse of what a formidable life partner she must be. “As bitchy as she comes off,” says a friend, “he really loves her.”
A flip remark in March about how she “could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas” crystallized the public’s uneasiness with Hillary’s role. The campaign was deluged with letters, and Hillary had to formulate a stock reply to explain she was only talking about “the ceremonial role of official hostess for my husband as Governor … I’ve got nothing against baking.” She calls the experience the “lesson of all lessons” and says it made her realize how careful she has to be to communicate clearly. It also shook her self-confidence. Rated one of the country’s top 100 lawyers, Hillary does not use language casually. To her, words are supposed to be precise. In the family study at the governor’s mansion, the Clintons have a picture of themselves in a spoof of the farmer-and-wife painting “American Gothic,” with Hillary casting a sidelong “there you go again” look at Bill. Now the role is reversed, and Hillary is not used to making mistakes.
Which may explain why spontaneity has never been Hillary’s style. She decided to become a blonde only after reading Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography. The former British prime minister once wrote that women should lighten their hair after reaching a certain age. A self-described “fanatic” as a mother, Hillary rarely misses Chelsea’s softball games or ballet recitals. She met Bill Clinton at Yale Law School during a time when pro bono legal activism was at its peak. And they’re still double-majoring in self-improvement and public service. After shocking her Methodist parents with her “mixed marriage” to a Baptist Democrat, she delved into her religion so thoroughly that at one point she lectured around Arkansas on “what it means to be a Methodist.” The Clintons attend separate churches on Sunday.
Even the way Hillary uses pronouns is revealing. She does not talk easily about herself and hardly ever says " I" in connection with anything personal. She has learned to turn probing questions into policy discussions. A query about what surprised her in the campaign turned into a lament about reporters’ lack of knowledge about Vietnam and world history. But when it comes to showcasing substantive accomplishments, Hillary is not shy. Her speeches and her conversations are sprinkled with “we” references to the Clinton administrations in Arkansas. She acts as an unpaid troubleshooter, marshaling expert opinion on an assortment of social issues. As the chair of Governor Clinton’s task force on education, she held public hearings in every county, helping build consensus for educational reform. Clinton values her advice and regularly refers to “our administration.”
Hillary professes bewilderment that so much meaning is read into whatever she does. Even her trademark headbands are scrutinized. As the campaign unfolds, her positions on issues will also come under fire. And if her husband wins in November Hillary will play a substantive role in the White House, probably chairing reform efforts on education and family issues. “Buy one, get one free,” says Bill Clinton. For the voters, electing Clinton means learning to live with The Hillary Factor-even if they don’t love it as much as he does.
title: “Hillary Then And Now” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-10” author: “Alice Weigel”
Over the past six months, Hillary Clinton has experienced the dilemma of modern womanhood the hard way. To her admirers, she is an embattled heroine right out of " Backlash," Susan Faludi’s best seller about the counterattack against feminism. Other voters, particularly older ones, are uneasy with the notion that Hillary is ambitious– not just for her husband, but for herself. This has made Hillary an easy target for GOP attacks. One right-wing fund-raising letter calls her “a radical feminist who has little use for religious values or even the traditional family unit.” An article in the conservative American Spectator says she endorses a right of children to sue parents and has lent support to an assortment of left-wing causes. With Hillary’s negative ratings slowly raising, both Clintons have stated unequivocally that Hillary would not serve in a Clinton cabinet. But Mrs. Clinton’s recent attempts to soften her image, to present herself as mother and homemaker as well as career woman, have only invited Republican mockery. " Hillary Clinton in an apron is like Michael Dukakis in a tank," says Republican consultant Roger Ailes.
In some ways, Hillary is better known to the public than her husband. Her name has become a code word, with different meanings for different people. For twentysomething women, “to do a Hillary” means offering a husband or male friend useful advice on life’s hard choices. Less flattering is a New Yorker cartoon of a businesswoman searching for just the right jacket in an upscale store. " Nothing too Hillary," the woman tells the salesperson.
The woman behind the public image, though, can be hard to find. Throughout her husband’s ordeal during the primaries, she was the stoic pro, unflappable and focused. But inwardly, she admits, she was shocked by the media onslaught. Occasionally, fear or bitterness creeps into her choice of words. She recites this nursery rhyme to describe how she felt on the campaign trail: “As I was standing in the street as quiet as can be / A great big ugly man came up and tied his horse to me.” Among Clinton’s inner circle Hillary was the first to realize the Clintons had achieved a kind of celebrity, and that it wasn’t necessarily an honor. After all the questions about the draft and infidelity drove down Clinton’s polls in New Hampshire, the campaign staff was surprised to drive up to a packed rally in Nashua. An aide marveled that perhaps all the polls were wrong. Why would so many people be there if Clinton was losing support? With more bite than humor, Hillary responded: " You don’t know why they’re here. They may just want to see the freak show."
Mrs. Clinton has had to change her image no fewer than three times during the course of the campaign. She insists she has done nothing different, that the “reductionist” impulses of the sound-bite culture have unfairly defined her. But she has evolved from a stand-by-your-man wife in New Hampshire, to a feminist crusader in New York and Illinois, to her current look: that of a more traditionally supportive wife. The contortions have taken their toll. Today’s Hillary is a burned-out, buttoned-up automaton compared with the vibrant woman who strode purposefully onto the national scene last January. Interviewed on the eve of the first revelations about her husband, Hillary was all spunk and fire, ready to change the world. She was also quite dewy-eyed over how the media and the public would treat the secrets of her married life, which she knew had to come out. Talking to her then, one got the feeling she thought it would be like national therapy–a session or two on the couch, and that would be it.
Seeing the Clintons in separate back-to-back interviews points up the contrast between them. He welcomes a visitor in the book-lined den of the Arkansas governor’s mansion, settling in for the better part of an hour. He chats about his weekend, the baseball game he saw, how daughter, Chelsea, 12, has just discovered the phone, his hoarseness, his struggle to lose weight. He gamely answers a lot of questions he’s heard before. He is, plainly put, a good sport. Hillary is not. At least not anymore. She parcels out her time in 20-minute car rides to this or that event. There’s no small talk. An interview is an endurance contest. Ask a question, she’ll answer it. But she doesn’t have to like it. It is a glimpse of what a formidable life partner she must be. “As bitchy as she comes off,” says a friend, “he really loves her.”
A flip remark in March about how she “could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas” crystallized the public’s uneasiness with Hillary’s role. The campaign was deluged with letters, and Hillary had to formulate a stock reply to explain she was only talking about “the ceremonial role of official hostess for my husband as Governor … I’ve got nothing against baking.” She calls the experience the “lesson of all lessons” and says it made her realize how careful she has to be to communicate clearly. It also shook her self-confidence. Rated one of the country’s top 100 lawyers, Hillary does not use language casually. To her, words are supposed to be precise. In the family study at the governor’s mansion, the Clintons have a picture of themselves in a spoof of the farmer-and-wife painting “American Gothic,” with Hillary casting a sidelong “there you go again” look at Bill. Now the role is reversed, and Hillary is not used to making mistakes.
Which may explain why spontaneity has never been Hillary’s style. She decided to become a blonde only after reading Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography. The former British prime minister once wrote that women should lighten their hair after reaching a certain age. A self-described “fanatic” as a mother, Hillary rarely misses Chelsea’s softball games or ballet recitals. She met Bill Clinton at Yale Law School during a time when pro bono legal activism was at its peak. And they’re still double-majoring in self-improvement and public service. After shocking her Methodist parents with her “mixed marriage” to a Baptist Democrat, she delved into her religion so thoroughly that at one point she lectured around Arkansas on “what it means to be a Methodist.” The Clintons attend separate churches on Sunday.
Even the way Hillary uses pronouns is revealing. She does not talk easily about herself and hardly ever says " I" in connection with anything personal. She has learned to turn probing questions into policy discussions. A query about what surprised her in the campaign turned into a lament about reporters’ lack of knowledge about Vietnam and world history. But when it comes to showcasing substantive accomplishments, Hillary is not shy. Her speeches and her conversations are sprinkled with “we” references to the Clinton administrations in Arkansas. She acts as an unpaid troubleshooter, marshaling expert opinion on an assortment of social issues. As the chair of Governor Clinton’s task force on education, she held public hearings in every county, helping build consensus for educational reform. Clinton values her advice and regularly refers to “our administration.”
Hillary professes bewilderment that so much meaning is read into whatever she does. Even her trademark headbands are scrutinized. As the campaign unfolds, her positions on issues will also come under fire. And if her husband wins in November Hillary will play a substantive role in the White House, probably chairing reform efforts on education and family issues. “Buy one, get one free,” says Bill Clinton. For the voters, electing Clinton means learning to live with The Hillary Factor-even if they don’t love it as much as he does.
Is your overall impression of Hillary Clinton favorable or not? 55% Favorable 26% Unfavorable
(For this NEWSWEEK Poll, The Gallup Organization interviewed 753 adults by phone July 9-10. Margin of error is + or - 4 percentage points. “Don’t know” and other responses not shown. The NEWSWEEK Poll 1992 by NEWSWEEK, Inc.)
