Crafting the New Hillary
She's removing the rough edges, but not everyone's convinced Senator Clinton is warm and fuzzy—or that she's a winner in 2008
The moment she stepped into the room, the crowd of 100 union and environmental activists burst into applause, and Hillary Rodham Clinton began dispensing hugs and air kisses. As photographers followed, Senator Clinton made her way to a front table and blurted out, "Hi, Anna," when she saw labor leader Anna Burger at the podium. At that point, an embarrassed Hillary quickly raised her hand to cover her face as she realized she had interrupted Burger's speech. "Sorry," Clinton said, prompting good-natured laughter from the activists, who had gathered in Washington for a national strategy conference. In her own address, Clinton sounded more like a motivational speaker than a presidential contender, urging the crowd to fight global warming and help reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels. "We're makin' progress," she exhorted. "Do not grow weary. You are doing good, as the gospel would say."
Her presentation was devoid of hard edges, contrary to her longtime image among critics as a harridan and a polarizer. Instead, Clinton has begun trying to present a warmer, more genial side—and she's having some success. Forty percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton, but 58 percent see her favorably, according to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll. That's an improvement from just a few years ago (chart, Page 26). And she enjoys a substantial lead over her Democratic rivals for the 2008 presidential nomination. In a hypothetical matchup, 36 percent of Democrats support Clinton, while 24 percent back Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, 14 percent support former Vice President Al Gore, and 12 percent endorse former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News survey.
The New York senator's basic strategy is to scare off potential donors and supporters of her competitors by campaigning as the favorite of the Democratic establishment—and the inevitable nominee. After conducting a "vulnerability assessment," Clinton and her advisers have embarked on a two-pronged plan to expand her lead. First, they are emphasizing her strengths—high name identification, a seemingly endless string of endorsements, lots of Washington experience, a reputation for toughness and intelligence, and enormous fundraising potential. Just last week, her campaign announced that it had collected more than $1 million from a seven-day online money drive.
Equally important, Hillaryland, as her team calls itself, is placing more emphasis on her personal qualities—friendliness, a sense of humor, and a willingness to listen—all in a crucial effort to improve her image. "People have dark notions about her. They think the Clintons are all-or-nothing people and that she is vindictive, angry, cold, and calculating," says a prominent Republican strategist. "A man who is cold and calculating is smart and shrewd. A woman who is cold and calculating is considered 'a bitch.'"
Attack. The tough side of Senator Clinton, 59, was evident in her dust-up with Obama a few weeks ago. After Hollywood mogul David Geffen, a former fundraiser for Bill Clinton, endorsed Obama and strongly criticized Bill and Hillary, the empire struck back. Howard Wolfson, Hillary's campaign spokesman, called on Obama to apologize for Geffen's remarks and to return his campaign contributions. Obama refused. "It reminded people that the Clinton instinct always is to attack," says a GOP adviser with close ties to the White House. "They can't help themselves." Many GOP strategists say this image is more than a little harmful to Senator Clinton, especially with men and independent voters. But there was no retreat. "When you're attacked," she declared in Iowa in late January, "you have to deck your opponents. You can count on me to stand my ground and fight back."
With that kind of rhetoric, perhaps it's no wonder that Hillary is just as polarizing as President Bush, maybe more so. Republican strategists, in fact, say she has so many detractors that she could never persuade more than a bare majority of Americans to vote for her. This again raises the nagging question of her electability, long a sore point. Her advisers are doing their best to counteract it.
"Hillary has just come off two landslide elections [for the Senate in New York]," says Mark Penn, Senator Clinton's chief presidential strategist. Penn says Clinton is competitive in all major polls with her likely Republican rivals, and notes that she's leading her Democratic competitors or is near the top of the heap in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
Why Hillary? "People see her as an experienced leader who has what it takes to govern in difficult times," Penn told U.S. News. "They see her as smart, strong ... someone who can relate to international leaders and restore respect to America." Penn says men are drawn to her "strength of leadership" while women, a majority of the electorate and the core of her support, see "the idea she can be the first woman president as an emotional and important event in their lives."
Clinton is also trying to come across as more cautious and centrist, if often ambiguous in her policy stands, to reassure independents and conservatives. In an interview with CNBC's Power Lunch last week, she urged Bush to address fundamental problems in the economy, such as soaring foreign debt and massive budget deficits. She called the stock market plunge a "wake-up call" and encouraged the administration to find some "sensible and reasonable" answers.
So far, the crafting of her new persona appears to be working, at least to a degree. "Hillary," as she prefers to be called, is not only maintaining a lead over Democratic rivals; she has also increased her favorability ratings among voters. In another surprise to critics who have claimed she's unelectable, recent polls find that she is running even with or within striking distance of the leading Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, and running ahead of Mitt Romney.
"The electability argument has faded," a prominent GOP strategist admits. "It's a credit to her and her campaign that she has moderated her personality step by step." In addition to hewing to the center on some issues, such as abortion and free trade, she has talked openly about her belief in prayer and has worked on legislation with a number of conservative senators, including South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, who helped lead the impeachment drive against her husband. And she has refused to endorse immediate withdrawal from Iraq, despite demands from many antiwar activists.
Her aides are also confronting the "Bill problem." Asked if the former president and his history of adultery and impeachment will cause her problems with voters, a senior Hillary aide says, "They wanted him to continue to be their president even in the middle of the [impeachment]. He is living an exemplary life raising hundreds of millions of dollars for charity. And Bill has always been an asset in New York [in Hillary's two campaigns there]." In fact, the Bill problem might be overrated. A new Gallup Poll finds that Americans, by a margin of 70 percent to 28 percent, believe he would be more helpful than harmful to his wife's presidency; 61 percent want him to advise her unofficially.
Pride. Women form the core of her constituency—and make up 54 percent of the electorate, a powerful base of support. To capitalize on this, Hillary talks openly about her pride in being a woman and a mother. About 59 percent of women have a favorable view of Clinton, compared with 39 percent who have an unfavorable view, according to the Washington Post/ABC News poll. She is especially popular among women 18 to 34, of whom 66 percent have a favorable view. In her re-election to the Senate from New York last November, she won 73 percent of the female vote.
But Clinton is much less popular among men. Forty-eight percent of men have a favorable view of her, and 49 percent are unfavorable. Her share of the male vote in New York last year, 61 percent, was strong but lagged substantially behind the women.
In one way, history is on her side, since the establishment candidate generally wins major-party nominations, as did John Kerry in 2004, Al Gore in 2000, and many Republicans over the years. But the establishment candidate also sometimes stumbles and falls, as did Ed Muskie in losing the nomination to George McGovern in 1972. As the front-runner, Hillary knows she will be everyone's favorite target.
"She's got the old guard, the establishment," says a Democratic strategist with close ties to a rival presidential campaign. "But is this a year when all the accouterments of the old guard and the establishment will be more of a hindrance than a help? You've got an electorate looking for change, and they're not looking to Washington." Adds Frank Donatelli, former political director in the Reagan White House: "The American people look to the future, not the past. Hillary Clinton can only be a candidate of the past."
All this insider chatter seemed far away during her talk to the union and environmental activists in Washington last week. While her friend Anna Burger spoke, a smiling Senator Clinton, like a schoolmarm admiring a star pupil, nodded approvingly. When it was her turn, Clinton wonkishly called for the creation of a strategic energy fund, starting with $50 billion from the government raided partly from the repeal of tax breaks for the oil companies, to help develop renewable energy and create energy security. She criticized a "hint of fatalism" that has crept into Washington during the Bush administration and called for Americans to renew their optimism and unite behind new solutions to the nation's problems. "This is what Americans do best," she said with a big smile. "We are problem solvers."
That's certainly an uplifting theme, but it's far from clear at this point that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the right messenger.
This story appears in the March 12, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.