希拉里 不愿站在政治聚光灯下的总统候选人

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　　费城——在其全国大会上，唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)每晚都忍不住要来一场风光亮相。然而在这里，在民主党人正争先恐后地赞美希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)之时，她却依然待在纽约州查帕阔的家中看电视的相关转播。

　　Naturally guarded, unusually private and hard-wired to avoid the type of boastfulness and hagiography that are so typical of political conventions, Clinton has seemed, halfway⁵ through this four-day celebration of her life and life’s work, a reluctant star of her prime-time production.

　　克林顿天生谨慎，格外好清静，对充斥于政治大会的那种自夸和吹捧唯恐避之不及，这场为庆祝她的人生与成就而举行的四天庆典已经过半，她似乎并不愿意成为自己的黄金时段节目的主角。

　　It is not hard to understand, when even her catchiest⁶ slogan — “I’m With Her” — has been turned against her by Trump: Stung by his suggestion that Clinton’s campaign was overly motivated by her ambitions, her advisers⁸ have urged revising it to “She’s With Us.”

　　这并不难理解，毕竟连“我支持她”(I’m with her)——她提出的一句十分上口的口号——也被特朗普用来攻击她：他提出克林顿的竞选过多地受到她自己的野心驱使，对此她的顾问感到不妙，建议改成“她支持我们”(She’s With Us)。

　　New evidence of Clinton’s reserve emerged late on Tuesday when a laudatory⁹ 10-minute video that powerfully cast her as a more than worthy¹⁰ heir to the women’s rights movement — and was produced by the same woman who had indelibly defined Bill Clinton as “the man from Hope” — was abruptly¹¹ pulled from its coveted¹² spot at the conclusion of the night’s program, according to two people briefed on the decision. The video was too narrowly focused to expand her appeal, campaign officials feared.

　　周二的一则10分钟长的视频被撤下，再一次印证克林顿的谨小慎微。视频充满溢美之词，有力地将她描绘为最有资格继承女权事业的人——而制作这段视频的，就是当年用一句令人难忘的“来自希望的男人”定义了比尔·克林顿的那个女人，它原本要在当晚活动接近尾声时的一个最佳时段播放，但突然被撤下了。竞选团队称，视频过于专注一个领域，不利于她扩大自己的影响面。

　　“She’s an introvert,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a Democrat². “The spotlight¹³ is pretty glaring, and she likes to deflect¹⁴ it.”

　　“她是个内向的人，”任农业部长的民主党人汤姆·维尔萨克(Tom Vilsack)说。“聚光灯很刺眼，她想避开。”

　　With a boisterous¹⁵ and jubilant traditional roll-call vote of state Democratic delegations¹⁶ early Tuesday evening, Clinton formally became the first woman to capture a major party’s presidential nomination¹⁷. But her Democratic National Convention has so far avoided some of the heroic tropes of these types of proceedings¹⁸.

　　周二傍晚，经过各州民主党代表的一场热闹、欢腾的传统唱名表决，克林顿正式成为首位得到主要政党总统提名的女性。但到目前为止，她的民主党全国大会避开了这类程序中的一些比较堂皇的因素。

　　(Asked about the video that was pulled, a Clinton campaign spokesman said that a number of videos had been under consideration for that time slot.)（关于撤下视频的原因，克林顿竞选团队的一位发言人说，那个时间点有多则视频可供选择。）If polls show that most Americans do not trust her or like her, Clinton’s strategy appeared to reflect confidence that even jaded²⁰ voters would not be so hasty to dismiss people who spoke¹⁹ compellingly of the deeds she had done on their behalf.

　　如果说民调显示多数美国人不信任或喜欢她，那么克林顿的策略表明，她相信，当有些人用令人信服的方式陈述她代表大家做了哪些事，即便已经厌烦的选民也不会轻易去否定这些讲述者。

　　So a man with dwarfism recalled how Clinton, as first lady, held him in her arms when he was a boy and promised to get him the health care he needed. A woman talked of her years enslaved in a sex trafficking ring and the work Clinton had done as secretary of state to help women like her. The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and others killed in acts of gun violence or in clashes with the police told of forging emotional connections with Clinton. The actress Meryl Streep, among others, portrayed²¹ her as a tireless advocate for women and children.

　　因此，一个患有侏儒症的男人回忆起儿时见到身为第一夫人的克林顿，她把他抱在怀中，承诺要让他享受到所需的医疗护理。一个女人描述了自己被非法卖淫团伙奴役多年的经历，是作为国务卿的克林顿向她这样的女性施以援手。特雷沃恩·马丁(Trayvon Martin)、迈克尔·布朗(Michael Brown)等在枪支暴力或与警方的冲突中丧生的人的母亲，谈起和克林顿建立情感联系的过程。包括演员梅丽尔·斯特里普(Meryl Streep)在内的许多人形容她是不知疲倦的女性和儿童权益倡导者。

　　Bill Clinton was given the singular role of bringing vividly²² to life, and to mind, the young activist-lawyer he met and married in the turbulent early 1970s.

　　比尔·克林顿的任务很明确，把1970年代初的动荡岁月中与他相识并结婚的那个年轻的活动人士和律师，用生动的方式回忆和呈现出来。

　　Even then, Hillary Clinton — who emerged as a leader in her college class — had showed misgivings²³ about the kind of glad-handing expected of an aspiring²⁴ politician. As a student at Wellesley College a few years before, she had mused²⁵ in a soul-searching letter to a friend that she felt like a “compassionate misanthrope²⁶.”

　　即便在那时，想到一个有抱负的政治人物将要面对的热闹场面，作为大学那一届学生中的领袖的希拉里·克林顿已经显出些许踌躇。几年前在卫斯理学院(Wellesley College)读书时，她曾给朋友写了一封反思自我的信，称自己感觉像是个“有同情心的厌人者”。

　　“Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals?” she asked.

　　“一个人可以在厌恶人类的同时，又爱或喜欢某些个别的人吗？”她问道。

　　Clinton went on to spend much of her career mainly as an adviser⁷ and surrogate for her husband. Although a caricature emerged of her as a Machiavelli in heels, scheming her ascent²⁷, to others she seemed more desirous of powerful obscurity.

　　在接下来的很多年里，克林顿大多数时候是在作丈夫的顾问和代办。尽管曾有一幅漫画把她描绘成穿着高跟鞋的马基雅维利(Machiavelli)，打着平步青云的算盘，但在很多人看来，她更渴望在默默无闻中掌握权力。

　　“I’d be happy in a little office somewhere, thinking up policies, making things happen, refining them,” Clinton told her friend Diane D. Blair when she was first lady, according to Blair’s notes.

　　据朋友黛安·D·布莱尔(Diane D. Blair)回忆，克林顿在作第一夫人期间曾对她说，“要是能有个小办公室，思考政策，办成实事，再做出调整，我就很开心了。”

　　By the time Clinton first ran for office, in the 2000 Senate race in New York, aides often had to remind her to say “I” instead of “we.”

　　到了2000年，克林顿首次尝试获得公职，参与了纽约州参议员竞选，当时助手经常要提醒她说“我”而不是“我们”。

　　“It was a very uncomfortable place for her to be,” said Patti Solis Doyle, a former campaign manager for Clinton.

　　“那种状态让她觉得很别扭，”曾任克林顿竞选经理的派蒂·索利斯·多伊尔(Patti Solis Doyle)说。

　　“She doesn’t wear her emotions on her sleeve,” said Lissa Muscatine, a former longtime chief speechwriter for Clinton.

　　“她不会把情感写在脸上，”曾长年担任克林顿的首席演讲撰稿人的丽莎·慕斯卡汀(Lissa Muscatine)说。

　　Clinton’s admirers also trace some measure of her uneasiness with horn-tooting to the way many women in public life have been content, or resigned, to work behind the scenes. “Women usually don’t worry about whether they’re getting credit for what they’re doing — they just do it,” Muscatine said. “And that’s kind of how she’s been in her campaign.”

　　克林顿的拥趸还认为，她对宣传自己的这种局促不安，和许多身处政界的女性满足于或听任自己在幕后工作的情况是相关的。“女性通常无所谓她们做的事有没有被记下功劳——她们就只管去做，”慕斯卡汀说。“她在竞选里差不多就是这种状态。”

　　To be sure, Clinton has shown more introspection this time around than she did in her 2008 presidential campaign. She has admitted some mistakes, spoken often about her upbringing, and described her mother’s harrowing childhood and how it influenced her career. And on Thursday, her daughter, Chelsea, in introducing her, will bring a daughter’s adoration²⁸ to a convention that has been more focused on Clinton’s policy differences with Trump.

　　这一次的克林顿，无疑比2008年那次总统竞选中的克林顿更内敛。她承认了自己的一些过错，经常谈到自己的成长，描述母亲悲惨的童年，以及这对她的职业生涯产生了怎样的影响。周四，在这场侧重强调克林顿和特朗普的政策差异的大会上，负责介绍她出场的切尔西将表达一个女儿对母亲的爱慕。

　　“She has had to learn how to be biographical,” said Melanne Verveer, a friend and former White House aide.

　　“她一定要学会介绍自己的事迹，”克林顿的朋友、曾任白宫工作人员的梅兰·弗维尔(Melanne Verveer)说。

　　So many years later, Clinton still seems energized²⁹ by policy, and adept³⁰ at appealing to people up close, but ill at ease with the showmanship of politics.

　　这么多年来，克林顿似乎一提到政策就充满活力，擅长打动身边的人，可花枝招展的政治秀仍然让她感到不自在。

　　And she is up against a reality television performer who cannot get enough of it.

　　而她的对手，却是一个对这些欲罢不能的真人秀演员。

 

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