美国国家公共电台 NPR After 4 Decades Of Breaking Molds, Clinton Failed To Shatter The Ultimate Ceiling

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After 4 Decades Of Breaking Molds, Clinton Failed To Shatter The Ultimate Ceiling

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After nearly two years of running for president, Hillary Clinton went for a hike yesterday near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. It's been a couple of days now since Clinton conceded the race to Donald Trump², marking what is almost certainly the end of her long political career. NPR's Tamara Keith looks back at Clinton's decades in public life.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE³: When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, he advertised it as a two-for-the-price-of-one deal. Hillary Clinton was a political spouse⁴ who broke the mold. She had her own high-powered law career, and when she defended it in an offhand⁵ remark, that set off a firestorm.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HILLARY CLINTON: You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided⁶ to do was to fulfill⁷ my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.

KEITH: This was taken as an insult to stay-at-home moms, but for Clinton, it was merely a statement of fact, and the fact is, Clinton has always been a disruptive presence. When she and Bill got married, she didn't take his name, that is until they decided his political career depended on it.

She was a full partner with her husband on policy making and political strategy, going places and doing things that haven't been done before, at least not by women. Celinda Lake is a Democratic pollster.

CELINDA LAKE: She's always broken glass ceilings wherever she's gone for herself and for others. And when you do that, sometimes you get nicked by some of the broken glass.

KEITH: Clinton was the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College but took heat for her remarks. She was the first first lady with an office in the West Wing, the part of the White House where the president and his top aides work. And she was met with skepticism when her husband put her in charge of health care reform.

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BILL CLINTON: I think that in the coming months, the American people will learn, as the people of our state did, that we have a first lady of many talents but who most of all can bring people together around complex and difficult issues to hammer out consensus⁸ and get things done.

KEITH: Clinton's effort at health care reform eventually collapsed⁹ under its own weight. And the whole time she was working on it, she and her husband's administration were embroiled¹⁰ in one scandal after another - Travelgate, Vince Foster's suicide, Whitewater. The investigations¹¹ - they would consider them witch-hunts - would be a fixture¹² of their time in the White House.

In 1998, Clinton went on the "Today" show to defend herself and her husband from what she believed was another false attack. This time it involved a White House intern¹³.

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H. CLINTON: The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy¹⁴ that has been conspiring¹⁵ against my husband since the day he announced for president.

KEITH: Of course the Monica Lewinsky affair turned out to be real. But David Maraniss, an associate editor at The Washington Post who has written extensively about the Clintons, says she has spent her entire public life under attack from the right.

DAVID MARANISS: You know, getting called before a grand jury, having to testify for 11 hours before a congressional committee, being investigated by the FBI. You know, it wasn't all her fault by any means, and none of these things lead to anything in the end yet. But it was a really - it was a heavy load to carry.

KEITH: And yet rather than hide, just as Bill Clinton was being impeached¹⁷, Hillary Clinton was charting out the start of her own political career. She would run for the open U.S. Senate seat in New York. At one point, she talked it through with a group of friends from her Wellesley years. Her political science professor Alan Schechter was there and remembers it well.

ALAN SCHECHTER: Someone said, well, why do you want to do it? You've been so criticized, so overexposed to criticism.

KEITH: What Clinton said stuck with him. She wanted to fight for children and families as she had throughout her life.

SCHECHTER: I will always have a voice if I'm a former first lady, but if I run for the Senate and win, I will have a much stronger voice, and I'm willing to take the politics of personal destruction. That's the price I will pay for having that potential influence.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

H. CLINTON: Because I believe we can meet these challenges together, I am honored today to announce my candidacy for the United States Senate from New York.

KEITH: She won that race and became the first female senator from New York. While in office, Clinton worked well with her fellow senators, including Republicans who had voted to impeach¹⁶ her husband. It's when she's running for office that the questions of likability and trustworthiness emerge and linger.

Celinda Lake says that for Clinton, the wounds of battle became scars in part because she was private about so much of herself. She focused on the work and wanted that to be enough.

LAKE: They don't have the personal context for understanding her, and that makes the negatives more vivid.

KEITH: She points to a focus group she did during 1992 where they asked about the Clinton's favorite foods. For Bill, everyone offered an answer even if they didn't know - barbecue, doughnuts.

LAKE: Or whatever you put in his face because he just was like the joyous¹⁸ warrior¹⁹ who liked everything. And when we asked, you know, what's the favorite food you think of Hillary Clinton, people go, I have no idea, maybe lettuce²⁰. (Laughter) And that wasn't a compliment.

KEITH: For female politicians, she says there is a double bind²¹. Voters require them to be strong leaders and likable, and it's hard for women to pull off being both. It was especially hard for Clinton, who readily admitted she wasn't a natural politician.

When she ran for president in 2008, her likability was an issue, as it was this time. Back then, it even came up in a debate. She was asked what she would say to voters who respect her resume but liked Barack Obama better.

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H. CLINTON: Well, that hurts my feelings.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I'm sorry, Senator. I'm sorry.

(APPLAUSE)

H. CLINTON: But I'll try to go on.

(LAUGHTER)

H. CLINTON: He's very likable. I agree with that. I don't think I'm that bad.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: You're likable enough, Hillary, no judgment²².

H. CLINTON: Thank you so much.

KEITH: Like she would again eight years later, Clinton offered experience in a campaign where voters were hungry for change and saw it in the big personality of her opponent. In 2008, she fought through to the very end of the primary. And in her concession²³ speech, there was a hint of hopefulness.

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H. CLINTON: Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

KEITH: The light was shining through, she said, giving hope that the path would be a little bit easier next time. And in some ways, it was. Clinton came out ahead in the primary this year despite a steady drumbeat of controversy²⁴ over Benghazi, her email server, the Wall Street speeches. Headed into Election Day, she was leading Donald Trump in most polls and had a vastly superior campaign operation. But it seems none of that mattered.

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H. CLINTON: I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

KEITH: When Clinton gave her concession speech in 2008, it was in the National Building Museum underneath²⁵ a ceiling made of glass. In that primary race, she had won the popular vote but lost in the delegate count. On Wednesday morning, she was ahead in the popular vote but had lost the presidency²⁶ in the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton ended her political career in a small hotel ballroom²⁷ with a white plaster ceiling. Tamara Keith, NPR News.