The First Lady Picks Her Battles
Hillary Rodham Clinton
"Hillary understands that when she says something, people pay attention," says Peggy Charren, an advocate of better children's TV programming. The first lady nudged the president to get networks to air three hours of children's programming a week. "Otherwise," says Charren, "that deal would never have been struck." Hillary Clinton also pushed the president to endorse the V-chip in a speech in Nashville. "Without question, it was the intention of the first lady to highlight and turn the Nashville summit into a conference on television violence," says Democratic Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, sponsor of the V-chip measure. On the night it passed, Markey got a congratulatory phone call at home from Mrs. Clinton, who had been following the debate all day.
Election strategy. Now, she is working to help re-elect her husband. Every Friday, in a White House conference room next to her office, a small group of women, including her chief of staff, Margaret Williams, meet to plot strategy. Mrs. Clinton occasionally joins this "Women's Outreach" team, which planned this week's celebration of women's suffrage and is working with the group Emily's List to turn out more women voters.
The first lady's office says that in 1994, when the Democrats lost the Congress, 54 million women voters stayed home. This year, Hillary Clinton intends to be the one who stays home, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, for four more years.
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