The American Spectator

TAS Live

The First Lady President

By Philip Klein on 1.11.08 @ 12:08AM

(Page 2 of 4)

Some of this electoral logic may have come into play in Iowa. While the state has proven more difficult terrain for Clinton in the nomination process than other parts of the country, by the fall she started to creep ahead in polls. One explanation for the rise was her support among female voters, who make up 62 percent of Democratic caucus-goers, according to the Des Moines Register.

Beyond voter demographics, the effort to play up her femininity is part of a broader strategy to soften her image as shrill, cold, and overly calculating -- an impression that is a driver of her high negative ratings and a reminder of her involvement in Clinton-era scandals. When she isn't being the woman who would break the highest of glass ceilings, she often plays into the role of the girly-girl next door, accentuated by her growing pink wardrobe.

ON A CHILLY FALL NIGHT in Ames, Iowa, a crowd surrounded the intersection of Main Street and Kellogg, and a seventh-grade girl helped introduce Hillary by recounting the moment she observed there weren't any women presidents in her sticker book. In her speech that evening, Clinton railed against President Bush for not demanding sacrifice of Americans after Sept. 11, but instead urging them to shop. "Now I got to tell you, I like to shop," she interjected. At a stop in Webster City, Iowa, when a questioner asked about the long nature of the campaign, Clinton responded, "My husband did not announce for president until October of 1991. I could have had a baby in the time I've been campaigning."

No matter how disciplined Clinton is as a candidate, over the course of a long campaign, it will be difficult for her to contain her worst personality traits. "Give me a fair reading as to who I am, not who somebody says I am," Clinton pleaded with a room full of voters in New Hampton, Iowa, as she wrapped up remarks, conscious that her reputation preceded her. Moments later, the crowd would have the opportunity to get a reading on her, though not the type her staff wanted.

During the question and answer period, Randall Rolph, a retired Democratic voter from Nashua, Iowa, confronted Clinton on her vote in favor of a U.S. Senate resolution calling on the Bush administration to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. The measure has been greeted with suspicion by war critics who view it as a possible pretext for President Bush to launch an attack on Iran. In answering Rolph, Clinton implied he was a plant from another campaign, and referring to the text of the legislation he had read from, she said, "obviously somebody sent [it] to you." He snapped back that he was offended by her suggestion, and she was forced to apologize.

Following the event, he explained to TAS that he was livid when Clinton insinuated he was a patsy for one of her rivals, because he had spent the morning doing his own research on government websites. "It was an insult," he fumed. "It was basically calling me stupid. That I can't think on my own. That I don't have the ability to research or come up with a coherent or concrete thought on my own. How dare she!" He continued, "She never did answer the question. She just, what I say is, bitch-slapped me."

Though the incident made headlines, it did not alter the larger media narrative that Clinton is running a flawless campaign.

HILLARY CLINTON'S NOTORIOUS ARROGANCE was one of the causes of the collapse of her health-care plan (which, with great chutzpah, she now cites as evidence she is battle-scarred). It is also central to her view of the role of government, in which the mommy state always knows best.

On May 5, 1994, Hillary Clinton went on CNN's Larry King Live to take questions from callers during the battle over her health-care proposal. A college student from Austin, Texas, said he was uninsured by personal choice, and expressed concern over her plan's requirement that he purchase health insurance. Always the charmer, Clinton told him that he could get into a car accident or wake up with a lump on his body the next week.

"You should be paying your fair share now, in your 20s, so that you will be taken care of," she lectured him. "You will help bear the entire social cost of those hospitals that are there for you if you get picked up off the side of the road some night and need emergency care, because then, as you get older, as you reach the apparently very far goal of 30 or 40, and you maybe have your own family, then you will need this healthcare..."

Clinton was careful to avoid such displays of arrogance when she rolled out her new $110 billion a year health-care proposal in September. She set the stage by offering interviews to hand-picked columnists (including E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and David Brooks of the New York Times) and presenting herself as a dedicated reformer who learned a lot from the failure of her first plan.

The media ate up the narrative of the new, humbler, Hillary. "She mixes self-deprecating laughter with meticulous analysis of interest-group politics to send one clear message: The Hillary Clinton of 2007 is a wiser, shrewder and more realistic politician than the first lady who tried and failed to pass her husband's health plan in 1993 and 1994," Dionne wrote. Brooks, who is supposed to be the conservative voice on the Times op-ed page, hailed the plan as "a huge step forward from 1993."

Cleverly, Clinton's plan co-opted the language of conservatives by emphasizing choice -- it is even called the "American Heath Choices Plan." But for all of the supposedly major accommodations in her new plan, it still rests on the same underlying assumptions about the role of government in controlling people's lives.

When describing her plan, she tells audiences, "If you have health insurance, and you like it, you keep it, no questions asked," as if she is being magnanimous by allowing individuals in a free society to maintain their own medical insurance. To insurers, she says, "You're going to be able to stay in business, but here are the new rules," as if it's a major concession on her part to allow private enterprises to remain open in a free market economic system.

"Now I know my Republican opponents will try to equate health care for all Americans with government run health care," she said in the speech announcing her plan. "Well, don't let them fool us again. This is not government run." The comment conjured up memories of Groucho Marx's one-time admonition about an associate: "Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot."

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Trade, Health Care, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Television, Business, Social Security, Law, Military, Iran, NATO, Energy, Medicare