are we ready?

So how does Hillary combat the two new biographies which portray her as a single-minded, intensely driven careerwoman?

Like any candidate wishing to become more of a ‘real person’ in the public eye, she goes back to her roots.
For a politician, this means emphasizing her childhood, family life, and ’salt of the earth’ experience. While Hillary has not completely brought out the big guns yet, she has started mentioning her childhood, her daughter, and her mother a bit more in speeches as of late (see this Washington Post article). Hillary wishes to be seen as a middle-class woman from the midwest. This new emphasis in Hillary’s campaign comes not a moment too soon. It is easy for Hillay to be seen as a two-dimensional politician and a solitary figure. Not only does the general public know little about her past (not too many people know that she is actually from the suburbs of Chicago), but the only familial connection which most people will make when thinking of her is, of course, to Bill. This is problematic in many ways, for the dynamic Clinton couple never seems to leave the limelight, making them hard celebrity-like and hard to relate to. Often, Hillary bears the brunt of this, and gets a bad rap for not being as ‘charismatic’ or ‘charming’ as her husband. In the past, Hillary has also not been able to use her daughter, Chelsea, as a humanizing force in her campaign, for she and Bill have always been very careful to respect Chelsea’s privacy, even going so far as to sue People magazine for putting Chelsea on its cover (see this Time article) in 1999. Now, however, Hillary “often describes how being a mom has shaped her candidacy” (according to this USA Today article).

Clearly, Hillary wishes to give the impression that she is not the woman who in college exchanged written 10-year plans for political takeover of the White House instead of love letters with her boyfriend Bill during their years together at Yale, as one of the new biographies about her claims. Nor did she choose to stay with her husband in spite of his infidelity only for political reasons. She is also a daughter and a mother, and is not immune to being shaped by the emotional and other experiences that this provides a woman. However, Hillary must know that it will be extremely hard for her to sell this image of herself. It isn’t just that she was pigeon-holed long ago and must now work her way to broaden people’s views; she must also make her new story believable, for it is easy to articulate positions or policies, but harder to sell a feeling of ‘realness’ to your public when you don’t feel such a ‘realness’ in you. Hillary may be a devoted daughter and doting mother– but she may not be. Time will tell whether this new tact helps Hillary seem more approachable, or if it will only strain her as she tries to show a side of her that’s not really there, or not really that important to her.