Rewriting History Part 3

Not her. But the woman dancing on the beach already knew that her husband had been subpoenaed to testify by Paula Jones's lawyers. I suppose it's possible she was simply enjoying a carefree moment. But knowing Hillary as I do, I believe it's far more likely that she was very careful indeed, laying the groundwork for her defense of her husband. Dancing on the beach, knowing the media couldn't resist the shot, reinforced the impression that there was nothing wrong in their marriage. She knew it would be crucial to appear relaxed and in love if she wanted to defend her husband's presidency - and her first ladyship - once the charges of the affair with Lewinsky came out two weeks hence.

But the most astonishing trial balloon was Hillary's claim in August 1996, three months before her husband's re-election, that she and the president had "talked about" adopting a baby. Barbara Olson relates how she "let it slip that they were 'talking about it more now.' She added 'I must say we're hoping to have another child.'" Hillary was forty-nine at the time. She never mentions the idea in Living History. And after the election, the Clintons never talked again in public about pursuing adoption. Perhaps the idea of adopting a child was sincere. Or maybe the entire thing was created as the election approached so Hillary and Bill could adopt - not a child, but the protective coloration of a normal family.

Though they never adopted a child, they did eventually get a dog. There's nothing to warm up your life - and your image - like a dog. In Living History, Hillary lovingly tells the story of how they came to buy Buddy. After Chelsea left for college, she writes, she and Bill felt acute empty-nest syndrome; "it was time to get a dog." She noted that "Bill wanted a big dog he could run with," and that they "finally decided that a Labrador would be just the right size and temperament for our family and the White House."

Eileen and I have had golden retrievers for the past twenty years, and now have three: Dizzy, Daisy, and Dubs. When Hillary came to visit us in 1994, she admired our herd. I suggested that she get a golden, and offered a golden puppy from a friend of ours whose female was about to give birth.

But Hillary was way ahead of us. "If we get a dog, it's got to be from a pound or the ASPCA. We'd get criticized if we ever bought a pedigree." Nothing went without calculation: That's just the way they worked. When Buddy arrived in the White House in 1997, it was no simple attempt to a.s.suage the Clintons' empty-nest feelings. It was a public relations move.

There's no crime in this, particularly. Every president uses his family and home life to attract political support, particularly when the going gets rough. Nixon delighted in his daughter Julie's marriage to David Eisenhower at the White House just when Watergate was heating up. Gerald Ford had himself photographed toasting his own English m.u.f.fin. John Kennedy played touch football with his entire clan.

But Hillary's domestic-charm offensives are nevertheless cause for concern, because they suggest a crisis-management approach that simply won't fly if she ever returns to the White House in her own right. Once she makes the move from the East to the West Wing of the White House, it'll take more than a half-credible story about cleaning out closets to deflect the penetrating questions of the Washington press.

HIDING WITHIN THE HERD.

When Hillary is attacked, she frequently parries the charges by arguing that it is all women who are under attack, rather than just one in particular. Like a water buffalo stalked by a lion, she gathers the herd around her for protection, defending the entire cla.s.s under attack rather than just herself. At times like these, she drops all semblance of individuality.

Criticized for her business dealings as a lawyer, she treats it as an attack on all professional women. Knocked for tolerating her husband's adultery in her bid to hold on to political power, she gathers around her all women who want to protect their privacy. Slammed with allegations of insider trading in commodities, she cloaks herself in the garb of every woman seeking financial security for her family. This "cla.s.s action" defense is designed to win sympathy from other career women and to attribute s.e.xism to the person raising questions about her. Hillary's imputation that anyone who criticizes her is attacking her entire gender - rather than just her - works to insulate her from much disapproval.

Often, she seems deliberately to overlook what people are saying about her in order to discuss what some say about people like her. In her memoir, she has a deft way of describing the strategy. "I adopted my own mantra: Take criticism seriously but not personally." In other words, disa.s.sociate yourself from any and all criticism. The attacks are never about her; there's no need to take them personally, because there's nothing wrong with her. They're criticisms of all women, or working women, or women in politics, or women in professions, or women in public life, or Democrats, or liberals, or supporters of the Clinton administration in general. They're never critiques of Hillary Rodham Clinton in particular. And, because all criticism is about her cla.s.s, not her, she neither listens to it nor learns from it.

Living History is full of examples: - Commenting on the reaction to her 1992 remark about not "staying home and baking cookies," she says: "Some of the attacks . . . may have reflected the extent to which our society was still adjusting to the changing roles of women. . . . While Bill talked about social change, I embodied it. I had my own opinions, interests, and profession. For better or worse, I was outspoken. I represented a fundamental change in the way women functioned in our society.... I had been turned into a symbol for women of my generation."

But the backlash after Hillary's remark had nothing to do with society's maladjustment to "the changing roles of women" or Hillary's own "opinions, interests and profession." It was a clear and simple reaction to the insult and arrogance she had directed toward stay-at-home women. The only "opinions and interests" that got her in trouble were her own insensitivity and elitism: - Deflecting the attacks directed at her for doing legal work for the state of Arkansas while her husband was governor, she said: "this is the sort of thing that happens to ... women who have their own careers and their own lives. And I think it's a shame, but I guess it's something that we're going to have to live with. Those of us who have tried and have a career - tried to have an independent life and to make a difference - and certainly like myself who has children . . . you know I've done the best I can to lead my life ..."

But the criticism she attracted had nothing to do with the inherent problems of juggling career and family. They had to do with a clear conflict of interest.

- Dismissing criticism of her role in Whitewater, she claimed that it was "about undermining the progressive agenda by any means."

But Hillary wasn't being attacked because she was a "progressive." She was being attacked because of her questionable conduct in a real estate deal: - Tarring the investigations of her White House years with a broad brush, she writes: "the purpose of the investigations was to discredit the President and the Administration and slow down its momentum. It didn't matter what the investigations were about; it only mattered that there were investigations. It didn't matter that we had done nothing wrong; it only mattered that the public was given the impression that we had. . . . Whitewater signaled a new tactic in political warfare: investigation as a weapon for political destruction."

The Republicans obviously pursued Whitewater to "slow down" Clinton's "momentum." That's what opposition parties are supposed to do. But they never would have had the chance had the Clintons not entered into a shady real estate deal in the first place . . .

- Citing Richard Nixon's paraphrase of Cardinal de Richelieu's famous quotation, Hillary accused her attackers of harboring the prejudice that "Intellect in a woman is unbecoming." But it wasn't Hillary's brains - or, as she hinted, the brains of every other intelligent woman in America - that were unbecoming. It was her conduct: - And, most famously, days after the Lewinsky story broke, Hillary told the Today show's Matt Lauer that the attacks on Bill were the product of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

But the nationwide outrage over her husband's behavior was no mere partisan flare-up. It was the natural result of the shock of discovering that our president had had a reckless affair with a young intern right in the Oval Office, and lied to cover it up.

Nor is Hillary above ascribing attacks to pure jealousy. In early 1994, she, the president, and I were discussing accusations against her former law partner Bill Kennedy for his handling of the Travel Office investigation, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman for his role in the Madison Bank investigation.

"Do you know why these reporters keep attacking us? Keep investigating us?" Hillary asked angrily, "Because they're jealous. We are the same age as they are. We're all boomers. They don't have to get jealous of Bush or Reagan. They're too old. But we are the same age as they are and they can't get over the fact that we're here [in the White House] and they're not."

(And some of these problems run in the family. In that same conversation, Bill complained that he was being attacked on the editorial pages of the New York Times by editor Howell Raines, a former Alabama reporter, because "I'm a southerner who didn't have to leave to make good.") Hillary's defenses do have a certain consistency. People attack her and Bill, she claims, because the Clintons are southerners, baby boomers, smart, or hold coveted positions. They go after Hillary because she's an outspoken professional woman who embodies social change, who pursues her own ideas instead of staying home and baking cookies. It's a cla.s.sic syllogism: Critique me and you critique the modern woman. But the modern woman is beyond reproach. And therefore so am I.

On occasion, Hillary's ability to see herself as a martyr sacrificed for the greater good rises to the sublime. In Living History, Hillary actually compares herself with Nelson Mandela, somehow finding a moral equivalence between the Whitewater investigations and the decades of persecution Mandela suffered because of apartheid. During her May 1994 visit to South Africa, she describes how Mandela, at a speech, singled out "three of his former jailers . . . who had treated him with respect during his imprisonment. He asked them to stand so he could introduce them to the crowd."

Then Hillary adds: "His generosity of spirit was inspiring and humbling. For months I had been preoccupied with the hostility in Washington and the mean-spirited attacks connected to Whitewater, Vince Foster, and the travel office. But here was Mandela, honoring three men who had held him prisoner."

Now, let's get some perspective here: Nelson Mandela endured decades in jail for the crime of trying to free his people. Hillary Clinton endured the scolding of the Wall Street Journal editorial page for her role in the White House Travel Office debacle. Hillary subsequently noted that if Mandela could forgive, then she could at least try to. So refined a sense of victimization is rare indeed.

But no rarer than Hillary's sense of self-worth. As we began to work together during Hillary's early White House years, I suggested that she presented too perfect an image to be believable. "You come across as fully formed, with no doubts, faults, or shortcomings," I told her. "People can't trust your presentation of yourself. n.o.body's perfect and when you act as if you are, people don't believe you."

"So what do you suggest?" she asked.

"Let people know about some imperfections - put the story out there. Eleanor Roosevelt let people know that she was insecure about her appearance and felt awkward about public speaking. It made her more believable. More human."

"I'll think about it," she promised.

A few days later, I asked her about it again.

"I really can't think of anything," she told me.

Even when Hillary came upon real adversity, she has shown little inclination to reckon frankly with it and reveal how such experiences have helped her learn and grow. Indeed, in all of Living History there is almost no suggestion of personal growth. She gives no indication of having learned from the fiasco of health care reform, from her husband's defeat for governor, from the Gennifer Flowers affair, from her various Whitewater problems, her husband's impeachment, or any of the other tempests that tossed her during her career. She seems unable to admit to anything short of consistent perfection.

And yet an essential feature of any successful presidency is the growth of the person who holds the job. The demands of the office are entirely unique; no new president arrives in the White House fully prepared for its trials, difficulties, and stresses. Each new tenant must either rise to the occasion, or fall short.

The examples are legion: Who could compare the John F. Kennedy of the Bay of Pigs - dominated by his elders and the military - with the savvy, take-charge leader of the Cuban Missile Crisis one short year later? The callow George W. Bush who took office in 2001 after a disputed election was a far cry from the figure who mobilized America in the aftermath of 9/11. The boy became a man before our eyes.

How do presidents grow? John Kennedy is often quoted as saying that good judgment comes from experience, which, in turn, often comes from bad judgment.

But there's serious reason to doubt Hillary's willingness to learn from her bad judgments. After all, if she dismisses all criticism as a cla.s.s action, how can she even recognize her own mistakes, never mind learn from them? Hillary has, at times, shown signs of growth: After the health care fiasco, for example, she backed away from further attempts at broad-scale, Utopian reforms. But she appears to have learned little from the pounding she took in defending her own finances, or Bill's impeachment and its causes. Would a President Hillary Clinton show the same obtuse inability to mature or grow or learn from adversity?

FEIGNING PROFESSIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

One hallmark of the HILLARY brand is that she is an independent, professional woman, admirably credentialed and accomplished, who gave up a blue chip career to serve the public in politics.

To substantiate her independence, in Living History Hillary makes no connection between her husband's political successes (and failures) and her legal career. But the HILLARY brand's image of professional autonomy is an illusion. Her career advances were a direct consequence of the success and political power of her husband. When he advanced, she advanced. From the day she moved to Arkansas in 1974, Hillary Clinton derived her political power and professional opportunities from Bill Clinton's career.

Hillary's account, in Living History, of her meteoric rise in the ranks of the Arkansas legal community makes no mention of the relationship between her husband's political prominence and her consequent access to professional opportunities. Could she really believe that there was no connection?

Part of the mythology of the HILLARY brand is that Hillary sacrificed a brilliant legal career in the corridors of Wall Street or K Street to go to Arkansas to work for her husband. The myth persists despite a few inconvenient truths - such as the fact that she failed the Washington, D.C., bar examination and could not have practiced there if she had tried to. She does her best to put a positive spin on the failure: "I had taken both the Arkansas and Washington D.C. bar exams during the summer [of 1972]," she relates, "but my heart was pulling me toward Arkansas. When I learned that I had pa.s.sed in Arkansas but failed in D.C., I thought that maybe my test scores were telling me something." Apparently they were telling her just how welcoming Arkansas could be.

Despite a complete lack of courtroom experience, Hillary began her legal career in 1974 teaching criminal law and trial advocacy at the University of Arkansas Law School. At the time, Bill was already a member of the faculty and a Democratic candidate for Congress. Criminal law is generally taught by former prosecutors, trial advocacy by experienced attorneys; Hillary was unquestionably bright, but she was no kind of experienced attorney. Yet she was even put in charge of the legal clinic and prison project, which actually permitted students to represent indigent clients and prisoners in court - a responsibility generally handled only by experienced attorneys.

At the age of thirty, Hillary's husband became the attorney general of Arkansas - an achievement strangely downplayed in her book: "Bill Clinton's first election victory as Attorney General of Arkansas in 1976 was anticlimactic. . . . The big show that year was the Presidential contest between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford."

While Hillary claims to have paid scant attention to his victory, the Rose Law Firm was watching Bill's trajectory closely. Almost immediately, they offered Hillary a job as the first female a.s.sociate at what Mrs. Clinton calls "the most venerable firm in Arkansas." She recounts her moment of triumph: "Vince [Foster] and another Rose Firm partner, Herbert C. Rule III, came to see me with a job offer." Although Hillary did not seem to a.s.sociate the offer with her husband's new influence in the legal community as the attorney general and lawyer for the State of Arkansas, the Rose Law Firm was not as naive. Even before they spoke to her, Rule had "already obtained an opinion from the American Bar a.s.sociation that approved the employment by a law firm of a lawyer married to a state's Attorney General." In other words, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Later, in 1979, Hillary was made the first woman partner at the Rose Law Firm, the same year her husband took office as governor of Arkansas. Every step Bill took up his ladder allowed her to advance another rung up her own.

And advance she did, even though her actual legal experience at the Rose Law Firm was sharply limited. She was never the great trial lawyer the HILLARY brand promotes. Gail Sheehy quotes Rose Law Firm partner Joe Giroir saying "I was always mad at [Hillary] for not doing more [legal work]." Sheehy notes that "She tried only five cases in her career at [the] Rose [Law Firm]."

Indeed, there's also an argument that Hillary owes even her election to the Senate to her husband. Her access to Bill Clinton's donors, political consultants, policy staff, image-makers, and even private detectives gave her a critical head start in the campaign. Her many White House perks didn't hurt either: Free government jets, White House events like state dinners and the Millennium celebration to charm donors, overnights for contributors in the Lincoln Bedroom and at Camp David, and the White House staff to do her research, all helped to give Hillary Clinton the edge that elected her to the Senate. And the newfound popularity and heightened status she acquired as the wronged first lady who acted with grace and dignity during the Lewinsky scandal didn't hurt either. Once more, her success and his marched in tandem.

BECOMING A NEW YORKER.

The HILLARY brand is "Made in New York." Though Hillary was born in Illinois, spent childhood vacations in Pennsylvania, attended college in Ma.s.sachusetts, graduated from law school in Connecticut, moved to Arkansas, and lived in Washington, HILLARY is a New Yorker.

The greatest challenge in launching the HILLARY brand was convincing people that she was now, suddenly, a citizen of the state she had asked to make her a senator.

And she tried hard. Her campaign started with a "listening tour" in which she visited every county of her new state. In her speeches, she spoke constantly of "we New Yorkers." After she and Bill bought their new home in Chappaqua, she relished dropping in-the-know references to Con Ed, the New York utility.

Even baseball couldn't escape her grasp. "I've always been a Yankees fan," she told Katie Couric on the Today show. "I am a Cubs fan, but I needed an American league team ... so as a young girl, I became very interested and enamored of the Yankees." (Not to leave basketball out of it, Hillary identified with the New York Knicks' star player: "I've always been a Patrick Ewing fan because you know he went to Georgetown.") Now, maybe this is all on the level. But as a lifelong New Yorker - and obsessive Yankees fan - myself, I know this much: In the hundreds of conversations I had with Bill and Hillary Clinton during our years working together, she never showed the slightest interest in what I now learn was our mutually favorite team. Though I never pa.s.sed the time chatting baseball with Hillary - somehow it just didn't seem appropriate - I frequently used stories from Yankee history to ill.u.s.trate the political points I was making. I remember one incident, when Hillary entered the room as I was studying the local Arkansas sports pages. Why was I so interested in Arkansas sports, she asked. I needed to find out if the Yankees had beaten the Red Sox last night, I explained - "you know, like you want to beat the Republicans." Funny - I don't remember her asking how her beloved Yanks had done.

The HILLARY brand couldn't really be Jewish but in 1999, just as she was getting serious about her Senate race, Hillary suddenly discovered a hint of Judaism in her background: Her grandmother's second husband, Max Rosenberg, was Jewish. Even though he was no blood relation, Hillary's discovery helped smooth her path to run for office in her highly Jewish adopted state.

And yet, in my experience, Hillary didn't always seem comfortable around Jews in her days as the first lady of Arkansas. In 1985, in the midst of a difficult negotiation with the Clintons over my fees, I saw a disturbing example of her tendency to stereotype us in a negative light.

Bill, Hillary, and I were gathered around the table in the breakfast room of the Governor's Mansion to negotiate my consulting contract. I quoted a fee that made Bill's hackles rise. (He always thought I should love him enough to work for free.) I told him I didn't have to work for him if he felt I'd become too expensive.

Bill took that as a threat to leave. "I can't stand when you do that," he said. "You know I need you, and you negotiate by threatening me. Don't Mau Mau me." (He was referring to the Kenyan nationalist group that attacked white colonialists in the 1950s with threats, violent rhetoric, and terrorist raids.) Hillary chimed in with an ethnic remark of her own. "That's all you people care about is money!"

Stiffening at the implied slur, I gave her an escape hatch: "Hillary, I a.s.sume by 'you people' that you mean political consultants?"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, with apparent relief. "That's what I meant, political consultants."

It wasn't the only time she skirted around the subject of my Jewish heritage. When I dined at the Governor's Mansion with the Clintons, the staff would often serve pork or ham, which I happen to enjoy. Invariably, Hillary would anxiously pull me aside and ask if the food was all right with me. When she asked for the fifth time, I began to bristle at the question: She was being solicitous, but she couldn't let it go. Finally, I told her that I loved pork - bacon in particular. The Mansion's wonderful cook overheard the comment, and from then on she had a heaping portion of bacon ready for me whenever I dined there - even when I came for dinner!

I always told Eileen that whenever Hillary started with the pork questions, I felt like Woody Allen in Annie Hall. I couldn't help thinking she must see me with a prayer shawl around my neck and yarmulke on my head as I swayed back and forth praying. I don't think Hillary was anti-Semitic, but I believe she did stereotype Jews.

As first lady of the Clinton White House, of course, Hillary always basked in the glow of her husband's genuine lack of ethnic or racial prejudice. On her own, however, she periodically loses strict control over her tongue, revealing hints of a darker, less enlightened racial consciousness. Hillary blurts: When angry or pressed, words can come out of her mouth that sound very, very bad. While speaking at a January 3, 2004, fund-raiser in St. Louis, Missouri, for example, Hillary invoked the great Indian civil rights leader, Mahatma Gandhi - and then stunned the Democratic audience (and the press) with her bizarre attempt at a joke: "Mahatma Gandhi - he ran a gas station down in St. Louis for a couple of years. Mr. Gandhi, you still go to the gas station? A lot of wisdom comes out of that gas station." As a senator who's endured far greater scandals, Hillary managed to walk away from that moment of madness largely unscathed by the press. But as president, she would be faced with a near-constant pressure to respond to questions - and her answers would be subjected to the unforgiving scrutiny of both the media and the American people. Senator Clinton has been able to dodge a few such bullets along the way, but President Hillary would have a far harder time explaining away such insensitive missteps.

The HILLARY brand depends on an element of mystery; her political machine cultivates a certain inscrutability that lends the senator an undeniable allure.

But Hillary is really one of the least mysterious people in politics. Bill Clinton is complicated. Hillary is simple. She is a professional politician, through and through. More ruthless - without question. Less subtle, certainly. More ideological, obviously. And probably more ambitious, though very much in the mold of the cla.s.sic politico. She thinks like a politician, acts like one, climbs the ladder as they all do, uses her family to project an image, and shapes her positions on issues with an eye on the polls, like any other politician in our midst.

But what is odd to observers and maddening to those who have known her well is that she tries so desperately to hide what she is behind the HILLARY brand. She conceals her motives and ambitions beneath a mask that bares no real resemblance to how she acts when the cameras are off.

Take the small matter of revenge. Of course, such a base motive would have no place in the HILLARY brand. But in the actions of the woman herself, it has been known to rear its head. As senator, Hillary voted twice against the confirmation of Michael Chertoff - once as chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, then on his appointment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. Each time, Chertoff's nomination was confirmed by a margin of 99 to 1. Hillary cast the only Nay.

What has she got against Chertoff? He served as special counsel to the Republicans on the Senate Whitewater Committee. He was the enemy; her vote against him was pure retaliation.

Fair enough - how human! Who wouldn't bristle at voting to reward a former foe with a plum appointment? But the problem wasn't with the vote she cast: It was with the way she chose to cloak her spitefulness. Appearing on the Today show, she told Katie Couric that she made her decision because some young White House staff members felt Chertoff had mistreated them. HILLARY, of course, would never stoop to revenge - but apparently the complaints of a group of poor, young, impressionable (and notably anonymous) staffers were just too poignant to resist.

The worst thing about the HILLARY brand is that it obscures the real person beneath the facade; instead of an intelligent, strong woman who makes no apologies for her actions, we get only the carefully coiffed, ultra-sensitive, hyper-programmed media package. In this, of course, she once again calls to mind Richard Nixon.

In 1960, during his first run for president, Nixon debated golden boy John F. Kennedy on television - and fixed his image in the public mind as pale and haggard, shifty and sinister. Two years later, when he was defeated in his race for California governor, Nixon lashed out at the press, blurting out that they wouldn't "have Nixon to kick around anymore." And there his image stood for years: angry, paranoid, untrustworthy, and vicious.

By 1968, though, when Nixon returned to run for president again, he had been taken in hand by advertising professionals - and the result was the new NIXON brand. Gone were the sagging jowls and the glowering visage. A sunny, tanned, smiling candidate emerged from their tutelage, a man who reflected typical middle American values and a small-business, hardworking ethic. As he ran, carefully camouflaging his position on the Vietnam War to attract both doves and hawks, his exposure to the national media was doled out by the thimbleful, each interview carefully conducted along pre-established guidelines. He campaigned largely at staged town meetings, where he interacted with carefully chosen voters, and managed to replace his once-vicious image with a benign, statesmanlike new self-portrait.

The NIXON brand got elected president. And for some time, the president we saw behind the White House lectern kept up the facade. Moderate and modulated, he addressed the American people with an apparent sincerity that seemed to clear the air after the chicanery and secrecy of his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson.

But one can wear a mask only so long. By the beginning of his second term, when the name "Watergate" entered the public consciousness, the grim-faced paranoid reappeared, sending the nation into a ma.s.sive const.i.tutional crisis. As we read about the wiretaps and burglaries, the dirty tricks against opponents, and the ruthless disregard for veracity and civil liberties alike, Americans came to loathe the president we had elected.

And when the NIXON brand took to the airwaves once more, trying to salvage a doomed presidency, the American people weren't buying it. "Fool me once, shame on you," we said; "fool me twice, shame on me." The president was finished: the NIXON brand had lost its credibility.

It's a lesson that Hillary and HILLARY alike should heed.

HIDING HILLARY: THE POLITICIAN.

Much as we may be attracted, from time to time, to outsiders and nonpoliticians who run for office - from actor Ronald Reagan to wrestler Jesse Ventura to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger - there's one fundamental fact that cannot be overlooked: The president of the United States succeeds or fails almost entirely due to political skill, that finely tuned combination of preparation and apt.i.tude that decides how a presidency will be remembered in the history books. To understand how history would treat a Hillary Clinton presidency, we must examine her strengths and weaknesses as a politician - a pract.i.tioner of what R. A. Butler called "the art of the possible."

Hillary began her political career as a campaign manager, pressed into service after her husband's wrenching defeat for re-election as Arkansas governor. At some level, she remained a manager - and often the manager - of Bill's political career until the end of his second term as president.

It has been nearly two hundred years since the American people elected a former campaign manager to the presidency. (The early American voters did it twice: James Madison was Thomas Jefferson's manager, and Martin Van Buren ran Andrew Jackson's campaign.) The closest we have come in recent history is Robert F. Kennedy: Eight years after he ran his brother's successful 1960 campaign, an a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet prevented him from securing the Democratic nomination - and very likely the presidency.

Campaign managers are just that: managers. They hire and fire staff, organize large amounts of work, allocate all-important (and all too scarce) human and financial resources, and translate plans into action. While most people understand that the profit-and-loss rules of business translate poorly into politics (despite protests that government should be "run like a business"), the importance of efficiency and streamlined decision making in politics is apparent to anyone who's ever been involved in the process.

The talents of a campaign manager are rarely found, as it happens, in politicians themselves. Candidates become candidates because of their talent for connecting with people, not just managing employees; they become successful candidates by nurturing that talent into an expertise. So we might a.s.sume that having experience as a former campaign manager would be a boon to a future president: It would help bring to the presidency the business and managerial skills that so many candidates do without.

But a campaign manager-turned-candidate will always see politics from the inside out. Where most presidents learn the skills of candidacy first and the internals of politics later, a campaign manager's education flows in the opposite direction.

Most candidates first learn to handle themselves in public, meet and court voters, give speeches, ma.s.sage the media, raise money, debate with their opponents, and develop issue positions. But a campaign manager learns these skills only after mastering the slash-and-parry of a political campaign.

And so it was with Hillary Clinton. Hillary learned the skills of managing before she began to master those of running for office. She knew how to hire, fire, and manage Bill's staff before she learned how to appear in public. She knew the intricacies of budgeting and controlling a campaign's spending first, and only later began to grapple with how to handle the press. Her forte was applying the insider's skills of a campaign manager. Mastering the role of a candidate - an outsider's role - is a challenge that has come relatively late in her political and personal development.

I began working with Bill Clinton in 1977 as he was gearing up for his first race for governor. I was his first consultant and he was my first client. The Hillary Rodham of 1977 was no politician. Working at the Rose Law Firm, she seemed no different from dozens of wives (or husbands) of other candidates. She wished Bill well, would help him in any way she could, but gave no appearance of having a personal stake in his professional accomplishments. That came later.

Hillary was not much in evidence during the time I spent with Bill planning that first governor's race. She never attended any of our polling or strategy meetings. Indeed, I saw so little of her that I had no sense of what role she might have been playing in my client's career. She stopped by Bill's office on rare occasions while I was there, but that was it. In those days, Hillary seemed intent on maintaining her independence. Few of us around her would have predicted the key part she would come to play in furthering her husband's political fortunes.

But then the bedrock on which her legal career was built - Bill's political success - crumbled beneath her virtually overnight. A prohibitive favorite to win re-election, he lost in 1980 to Republican upstart Frank White.

Clinton had taken office in 1979 as a wunderkind boy governor. At thirty-one, he was filled with bright new ideas that were too big for the confines of his state budget. Since his enthusiasm for the programs he wanted to initiate was greater than his means, something had to give. So he raised taxes.

And the tax he increased, the car-licensing fee, was the worst choice possible. Arkansans don't like you to mess with their cars. Right after Clinton became governor in 1979, I conducted a survey that made it evident that any increase in car fees would be politically deadly. Clinton not only disregarded my advice, but fired me shortly after the election for having the temerity to offer it. At our last meeting, Clinton told me that I was "an a.s.sault to his vanity": As a master politician, he felt he shouldn't have to depend on someone else for political advice - least of all a pollster. (He soon changed his mind.) A few weeks later one of his aides called to tell me I was no longer needed. After working side-by-side with Bill Clinton for two years, I was suddenly gone. I heard nothing from Bill or Hillary for another year and a half - until they were in desperate political shape.

In those days Arkansas governors served two-year terms, so Clinton had to face the voters again in 1980. And they were not in a good mood. Angry over the increase in their car fees and annoyed that Clinton had let President Carter send thousands of Cuban refugees to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas (where they rioted, tried to escape, and generally made the surrounding state hate them), the voters had begun to turn on Clinton. His opponent, Frank White, exploited these weaknesses with sharp negative ads. It didn't take long before Bill was in serious trouble.

So Hillary reached for the phone.

One of the happier days of my professional life came in late October 1980, two weeks before the election, when my wife Eileen called me in Florida to say: "You won't believe this. Hillary just called and Bill is losing - badly - and they want you back right away."

Without apology or preface, Hillary had announced to Eileen that "Bill is in trouble. We need d.i.c.k down here to work on some ads."