HILL CUT HER OWN PATH
Former first lady did things her way
It was the winter of 1992 and Hillary Rodham Clinton had just become a national figure after she told Steve Croft on “60 Minutes” she was not simply “standing by my man like some little Tammy Wynette.”
In the wake of the Gennifer Flowers bombshell, Hillary said she loved her bird-dogging husband, Bill. Hardly anyone believed her, of course, but she was not deterred.
A few weeks later, after Bill Clinton became the “Comeback Kid” in New Hampshire, I met Hillary at a temple in Boca Raton, Fla. The interview was set up by her advance man, Dorchester’s own, Stevie Graham.
What I recall is that Hillary was warm, gracious and completely unflappable. Nothing about the Flowers firestorm, or the 23-page letter Bill had written to his draft board in Arkansas, was going to blur her focus on helping get them both to the White House.
She stepped onto a stage in front of about 300 people and for the next 30 minutes, without a note, delivered a speech on the state of the Middle East relations worthy of Henry Kissinger.
At one point, I turned to Graham and asked, “How come she’s not running?”
He smiled and said, “You’d be surprised how many people ask me that same question.”
That was 24 years ago. With all due respect to one of the great legends of country music, no one would ever again confuse Hillary Clinton with Tammy Wynette. Yet, she became an object of contempt for many precisely because she didn’t cut Bill loose.
Long ago she carved out her own path on the national political stage, separate and apart from her husband. It seems those who admire Hillary’s grit and drive are almost equaled by those who hate it.
But then remember who Hillary succeeded as first lady — the beloved, silver-haired matron Barbara Bush. It was clear Hillary Clinton was never going to be content to play hostess, even if her husband was the president. There was way too much Eleanor Roosevelt in her for that. And it rubbed whole generations of people the wrong way.
Yet, when you think about it, even the legions of people who have grown to hate Hillary over the 24 years since we first met in Boca Raton, hate her like a man … like the serious political force she is, a woman who’s already made one spirited run at the glass ceiling in the Oval Office. That’s progress right there.
Perhaps the trajectory of Hillary’s life was set when she gave that fiery graduation speech at Wellesley half a lifetime ago. The feminist trailblazer with the radical heart was destined to lock horns with an overstuffed chauvinist for the top job in the White House.
It’s more than politics. It’s karma.