Eighteen years and eight campaigns later, Hillary Rodham Clinton is still a driving force in her husband’s political career: his best friend and closest adviser, a full partner in Clinton’s pursuit of the presidency. She is also a professional in her own right, a partner in a prestigious law firm, a lawyer with a blue-chip resume and a political activist with an impressive track record in children’s rights and other liberal causes. She is the very model of a modern political wife-a woman who is clearly disinclined to sit in adoring silence at her husband’s side, who is known for her incisive intellect and forthright, take-charge manner. As Clinton himself has said, Hillary is “far better organized, more in control, more intelligent and more eloquent” than he.
All this makes Hillary Clinton a prime target for the opposition, for Jerry Brown, fighting his rear-guard action in the Democratic primaries, and for Republicans now probing for vulnerabilities in her husband’s candidacy. Everything she is, and everything she stands for, is under scrutiny-the ethics of her dual career in politics and the law, her political views, her forceful personality and her open challenge to the traditional wisdom that politician’ wives, like children, are better seen than heard. In recent days, buffeted by criticism from virtually every direction, Hillary Clinton has clearly lowered her profile on the campaign trail, and the Clinton high command now hopes to depict her as a caring wife and mother as well is a high-powered political lawyer. But no one thinks she has been muffled or censored, and few doubt that she will resume her active public role in the weeks ahead. Hillary, they say, is Hillary; nobody tells her what to say or what to do.
The question now is whether she is an asset or a liability to her husband’s campaign. Those within the Clinton entourage say Hillary is unquestionably an asset and that her value will only increase as the voters get to know her better. In fact, according to NEWSWEEK’S latest poll, 68 percent of the public already views her favorably.
But others, including some of Bill Clinton’s strongest supporters, worry that Hillary’s tendency to say precisely what she thinks has already offended tradition-minded voters. Item one was her comment on the subject of her husband’s alleged infidelities to “60 Minutes.” “I’m not some little woman standing by her man like Tammy Wynette,” she said, heedless of the country-music vote. Item two was her remark to reporters after Brown attacked her for practicing law in Little Rock while her husband was governor. “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas,” she said. “But what I decided to do was fulfill my profession.” That comment “is bound to polarize women,” said Susan Howell a political-science professor at the University of New Orleans. “It’s going to turn off people who are committed to traditional values and traditional roles for women.” In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Hillary Clinton protested Brown’s “unwarranted attack on me, my husband and my law practice.” But, she says, “I deeply regret that my comment about baking cookies and having teas was taken out of context. There is nothing in my life or work that could be construed as disparaging women who choose to stay home and raise a family. I honor them. Those are the choices my own mother made.”
The other problem, at least potentially, lies in Jerry Brown’s attack on her legal activities. Citing a Washington Post story that outlined the close ties between her firm, the Rose Law Firm, and Arkansas state government, Brown charged that the Bill-and-Hillary connection was tantamount to “corruption.” Clinton angrily denied it, and his wife insists that she never profited from the firm’s business with the state. But the ethical questions may run deeper than that. For one thing, Hillary Clinton was at least briefly listed as attorney of record for an Arkansas real-estate investor and savings and loan operator named James McDougal. According to The New York Times, in 1985 her firm helped McDougal get permission from the state securities board for a stock deal to expand his S&L. The thrift collapsed two years later. McDougal, the Times also reported, had worked for Clinton during his first term as governor and brought the Clintons into a real-estate deal in northwest Arkansas. (The Clintons say they lost money in the deal and deny any wrongdoing.)
There is so far no convincing evidence that either did anything improper as governor or Little Rock lawyer. But the opposition will undoubtedly comb the fine print of each and every legal transaction she handled, looking for irregularities. Fairly or not, that raises the possibility of new allegations of wrongdoing and exposes both of them to negative campaigning-just as her advocacy of liberal causes like children’s rights has now exposed her to ideological attack from conservatives. “On her principles, [government] could decide that parents violate their children’s ‘rights’ by keeping them out of public school,” William F. Buckley’s National Review warned last week. (NR’s cover line, over a photo of Clinton, was STOP–OR MY WIFE WILL SHOOT.)
The core issue, arguably, is whether America is really ready for a self-confident, politically active woman like Hillary Clinton as First Lady. What causes will she champion and what advice will she give her husband? How will she handle the sticky question of her career in law? There is no real parallel in history-not even Eleanor Roosevelt, whose liberal activism was endlessly criticized by her husband’s political enemies. Leading Republicans are even now sharpening their knives for Hillary Clinton. It was Richard Nixon, for example, who in February pointedly observed that a strong wife “makes the husband look like a wimp.” And veteran GOP strategist Eddie Mahe says, “Hillary Clinton will have to say at some point in the general election [campaign] that she wont work, or that she’d work as a volunteer for the Red Cross” if her husband is elected president.
Hillary Clinton is not likely to take Mahe’s advice. She maintains that she is “not that significant a target on my own!’ and that the personal attacks are attempts to divert attention from the campaign’s message. She also told NEWSWEEK that she expects to “be involved in helping to bring about changes in those areas in which I have an abiding interest. How? I don’t know yet … It may not be that I would be practicing law in a private firm. But I would be using my legal expertise to help resolve problems.”
And finally, there is the inevitable comparison with Barbara Bush-America’s grandmother, a gracious symbol of women’s traditional supporting role. “I don’t think we ought to move from one stereotype of a First Lady to another,” Hillary Clinton said. “I admire Barbara Bush and all the women who have found themselves in that position, who have tried to shape the position to their needs and their husbands’ needs. The choices a woman makes should be respected.” But it isn’t that simple. The contrast between Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton sends an unmistakable message about generational change and women’s equality–and those issues could help shape the 1992 election.
What is your overall impression of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton’s wife?
For this NEWSWEEK Poll The Gallup Organization interviewed 750 adults by phone on March 19-20. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. “Don’t know” and other responses not shown. The NEWSWEEK Poll, 1992 by NEWSWEEK, Inc.
title: “Will Hillary Hurt Or Help " ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-06” author: “Ann Phillips”
Eighteen years and eight campaigns later, Hillary Rodham Clinton is still a driving force in her husband’s political career: his best friend and closest adviser, a full partner in Clinton’s pursuit of the presidency. She is also a professional in her own right, a partner in a prestigious law firm, a lawyer with a blue-chip resume and a political activist with an impressive track record in children’s rights and other liberal causes. She is the very model of a modern political wife-a woman who is clearly disinclined to sit in adoring silence at her husband’s side, who is known for her incisive intellect and forthright, take-charge manner. As Clinton himself has said, Hillary is “far better organized, more in control, more intelligent and more eloquent” than he.
All this makes Hillary Clinton a prime target for the opposition, for Jerry Brown, fighting his rear-guard action in the Democratic primaries, and for Republicans now probing for vulnerabilities in her husband’s candidacy. Everything she is, and everything she stands for, is under scrutiny-the ethics of her dual career in politics and the law, her political views, her forceful personality and her open challenge to the traditional wisdom that politician’ wives, like children, are better seen than heard. In recent days, buffeted by criticism from virtually every direction, Hillary Clinton has clearly lowered her profile on the campaign trail, and the Clinton high command now hopes to depict her as a caring wife and mother as well is a high-powered political lawyer. But no one thinks she has been muffled or censored, and few doubt that she will resume her active public role in the weeks ahead. Hillary, they say, is Hillary; nobody tells her what to say or what to do.
The question now is whether she is an asset or a liability to her husband’s campaign. Those within the Clinton entourage say Hillary is unquestionably an asset and that her value will only increase as the voters get to know her better. In fact, according to NEWSWEEK’S latest poll, 68 percent of the public already views her favorably.
But others, including some of Bill Clinton’s strongest supporters, worry that Hillary’s tendency to say precisely what she thinks has already offended tradition-minded voters. Item one was her comment on the subject of her husband’s alleged infidelities to “60 Minutes.” “I’m not some little woman standing by her man like Tammy Wynette,” she said, heedless of the country-music vote. Item two was her remark to reporters after Brown attacked her for practicing law in Little Rock while her husband was governor. “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas,” she said. “But what I decided to do was fulfill my profession.” That comment “is bound to polarize women,” said Susan Howell a political-science professor at the University of New Orleans. “It’s going to turn off people who are committed to traditional values and traditional roles for women.” In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Hillary Clinton protested Brown’s “unwarranted attack on me, my husband and my law practice.” But, she says, “I deeply regret that my comment about baking cookies and having teas was taken out of context. There is nothing in my life or work that could be construed as disparaging women who choose to stay home and raise a family. I honor them. Those are the choices my own mother made.”
The other problem, at least potentially, lies in Jerry Brown’s attack on her legal activities. Citing a Washington Post story that outlined the close ties between her firm, the Rose Law Firm, and Arkansas state government, Brown charged that the Bill-and-Hillary connection was tantamount to “corruption.” Clinton angrily denied it, and his wife insists that she never profited from the firm’s business with the state. But the ethical questions may run deeper than that. For one thing, Hillary Clinton was at least briefly listed as attorney of record for an Arkansas real-estate investor and savings and loan operator named James McDougal. According to The New York Times, in 1985 her firm helped McDougal get permission from the state securities board for a stock deal to expand his S&L. The thrift collapsed two years later. McDougal, the Times also reported, had worked for Clinton during his first term as governor and brought the Clintons into a real-estate deal in northwest Arkansas. (The Clintons say they lost money in the deal and deny any wrongdoing.)
There is so far no convincing evidence that either did anything improper as governor or Little Rock lawyer. But the opposition will undoubtedly comb the fine print of each and every legal transaction she handled, looking for irregularities. Fairly or not, that raises the possibility of new allegations of wrongdoing and exposes both of them to negative campaigning-just as her advocacy of liberal causes like children’s rights has now exposed her to ideological attack from conservatives. “On her principles, [government] could decide that parents violate their children’s ‘rights’ by keeping them out of public school,” William F. Buckley’s National Review warned last week. (NR’s cover line, over a photo of Clinton, was STOP–OR MY WIFE WILL SHOOT.)
The core issue, arguably, is whether America is really ready for a self-confident, politically active woman like Hillary Clinton as First Lady. What causes will she champion and what advice will she give her husband? How will she handle the sticky question of her career in law? There is no real parallel in history-not even Eleanor Roosevelt, whose liberal activism was endlessly criticized by her husband’s political enemies. Leading Republicans are even now sharpening their knives for Hillary Clinton. It was Richard Nixon, for example, who in February pointedly observed that a strong wife “makes the husband look like a wimp.” And veteran GOP strategist Eddie Mahe says, “Hillary Clinton will have to say at some point in the general election [campaign] that she wont work, or that she’d work as a volunteer for the Red Cross” if her husband is elected president.
Hillary Clinton is not likely to take Mahe’s advice. She maintains that she is “not that significant a target on my own!’ and that the personal attacks are attempts to divert attention from the campaign’s message. She also told NEWSWEEK that she expects to “be involved in helping to bring about changes in those areas in which I have an abiding interest. How? I don’t know yet … It may not be that I would be practicing law in a private firm. But I would be using my legal expertise to help resolve problems.”
And finally, there is the inevitable comparison with Barbara Bush-America’s grandmother, a gracious symbol of women’s traditional supporting role. “I don’t think we ought to move from one stereotype of a First Lady to another,” Hillary Clinton said. “I admire Barbara Bush and all the women who have found themselves in that position, who have tried to shape the position to their needs and their husbands’ needs. The choices a woman makes should be respected.” But it isn’t that simple. The contrast between Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton sends an unmistakable message about generational change and women’s equality–and those issues could help shape the 1992 election.
What is your overall impression of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton’s wife?
For this NEWSWEEK Poll The Gallup Organization interviewed 750 adults by phone on March 19-20. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. “Don’t know” and other responses not shown. The NEWSWEEK Poll, 1992 by NEWSWEEK, Inc.
