Her husband was somewhat nonplused by the fuss over her hairdo-very un-Bill. He looked at her hair uncertainly and offered something to the effect that it would “probably be down tomorrow.”
Somehow, the new hairdo, the Hollywood look and the makeup were a metaphor for the changing roles Hillary Clinton has been playing during the campaign: at times serious and strident, at times feminine and girlish. But the campaign is over. On Jan. 20 it will be time for the real Hillary Clinton to stand up.
Who that woman will be, and how she does it, will determine the success or failure of her time in the White House-and perhaps even that of her husband.
Someone in the Clinton campaign was quoted recently as saying that after what they went through in the campaign, Washington would be a piece of cake. But any former president or First Lady will tell you that nothing prepared them for the scrutiny and the criticism that one must live with every day in the White House. It can be hurtful, baffling and intolerable, but one thing is certain: it never stops. It goes with the territory.
For Hillary Clinton it will be worse than it has ever been for any other First Lady because she is charting new ground. Her advisers and friends are forewarning her of all the problems she is likely to encounter. But it is important that she be prepared for how tough, how complicated and how uncharitable the atmosphere in Washington can be when the stakes are so high.
Hillary is topic A among Washington’s professional female community of her generation. Women lawyers, lobbyists, reporters, producers, economists, environmentalists and health-care experts are watching with a mixture of pride and apprehension to see how she is going to handle the position. These are women who have worked their way up in Washington, which has always been and still is to a certain extent a man’s town. Many of these women are worried that she has already made a few missteps that could get her off to a troubled start.
Some thoughts about how Hillary Clinton can maneuver her way through the treacherous terrain called Washington:
Not only will Hillary be a change in terms of what kind of First Lady she will be (yes, that term will have to go too; might as well do it now rather than wait for the first woman president), but she will face a changing city and a changing constituency as well.
Every other First Lady has had as her peers and her constituents, for the most part, “wives of…” They were women who didn’t work and were in Washington because of whom they married. There is an old saying that Washington is full of powerful men and the women they married when they were young. This has been true until very recently.
Each First Lady has looked to these women for approval-congressional wives, diplomatic wives, “Georgetown hostesses” of another generation. Little was required of a First Lady to be accepted and admired but to fulfill her role as a traditional wife, mother and hostess. And she had to give lip service to some sort of project, whether it was beautification, mental health or drugs. To be successful, a First Lady had to avoid controversy, which meant never offending anyone.
The women who broke those rules, Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan, paid a heavy price. Those who didn’t, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford and Barbara Bush, managed to come out alive.
But Washington has changed. Today, Hillary Clinton’s peers and constituents are the city’s professional women. They will judge her more critically than any other First Lady has been judged, not only by how good a wife-mother-hostess she is (yes, these roles still count) but, most important, by what she accomplishes on her own.
Hillary Clinton will not be judged by what Bill Clinton accomplishes as much as she will be judged by what he does not accomplish if she tries to play an active role in his government. Therefore, she must understand the most important fact of her new life:
At a Washington dinner recently she was heard to talk about the budget. She was impressive and knowledgeable. But her conversation was peppered with “we”: “We got our first look at the budget.”
Those who’ve known Hillary for years say that she has always used “we,” that the Clintons have always operated as a team. But Little Rock is not Washington. “We” is the kiss of death in Washington. It is also regressive. “We” is sexist. “I” and “he” are not. In an effort to avoid one outdated image-the little lady who does the dinners, the White House menus, the redecorating and the china-Hillary could be in danger of evoking another outdated image, that of the meddling wife. Because people are so eager to reassure her that she is a person in her own right, they may convince her that it is acceptable to be out front on policy is and be actively and publicly involved in personnel decisions.
If she pursues the “we” of governing, she is in danger of perpetuating the image of the intelligent wife living through her husband. That stereotype is destructive and confusing. If she’s a strong woman with no legitimate base of her own she could appear to be a frustrated and trapped woman, dependent on her husband and his largesse for her professional satisfaction.
It would be preferable for Hillary Clinton to get something outside government in her own field of child welfare, health and education. She is hampered by two things: the anti-nepotism statute passed in 1967 and conflict-of-interest concerns about First Ladies using their official position to fund-raise. If she had some autonomy, her choices would be unlimited. As head of a foundation, for example, she would have a platform of her own. This would give her even greater credibility and allow her to write a new agenda for the issues she’s concerned with. And she could ultimately have more power than if she were operating as just “the wife.” To say she should just be First Lady and operate through her husband is sexist, demeaning and insulting. To have her own job would broaden her choices, not narrow them.
Poor Rosalynn Carter, whose motives were pure and whose heart was in the right place, got killed for going to cabinet meetings. She had the right idea-to be informed-but she did it the wrong way. She could have had the meetings tape-recorded, transcribed or even videotaped. She set herself up for criticism. Nancy Reagan operated “behind the scenes”: she called people up on the telephone and told them what to do. Never mind that sometimes she was right. People hated her for it, and in the end it destroyed her reputation.
Hillary’s attendance at the meeting in Little Rock with congressional leaders was considered by many professional Washington women to be a mistake. “I don’t go to my husband’s meetings; he doesn’t go to mine,” said one high-powered woman journalist.
If Hillary were to go to her husband’s meetings, then perhaps all spouses should be invited. Certainly Heather Foley, wife of the speaker of the House and her husband’s office manager, could have added something to the meeting in Little Rock. To say that meeting was just a dinner and Hillary was simply acting as hostess in her own home won’t work. As her husband announced the next day, she talked a lot and knew more than many of those at the table. Last week he told The Wall Street Journal that he wanted her to sit in on cabinet meetings because “she knows more about a lot of this stuff than most of us do.”
It’s easier to see the point if one reverses the roles. If a woman were president, would her husband attend all of her meetings, talk about “our” budget sessions and be credited with hiring and firing key members of the administration? Almost certainly not. It would be naturally assumed that he would have his own job and his own life outside the government, and not be functioning on his wife’s largesse.
One of the most fascinating rituals in the anthropology of Washington is the ritual of choosing a scapegoat. As in any family where one member is silently elected to act out the problems of the rest, so Washington plays out the same scenario.
Washington wants to like and respect the president. It’s not just him; it’s the job. So when things start going wrong, they look for others to blame. The president takes the blame as a last resort. A smart president will appoint at least one person close to him who is actively disagreeable and unpopular so he can play the good cop/bad cop routine. John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Watt, Donald Regan and John Sununu all come to mind. If the president doesn’t do this, and sometimes even if he does, then the wife has to play the scapegoat. Look what happened when Reagan got rid of Regan, and Bush got rid of Sununu. Nancy Reagan virtually leapt into the role of scapegoat and Washington was willing to accommodate her. Even the untouchable Barbara Bush started getting her share after Sununu left. Both these women wanted the chiefs of staff out in order to protect their husbands. Yet urging their ousters only meant that they had to fling themselves on the funeral pyre. Shrew, harridan, bitch are all words that are easy to pin on a First Lady who appears to be wielding power when things go wrong. And things always go wrong.
If the First Lady is wielding power, if she sits in on staff and cabinet meetings, if she makes policy-and people know it-two power centers will automatically develop, his and hers. The infighting, gossip and backbiting will be unmanageable. All of that would be distracting and damaging to the president. For Hillary Clinton, having Mack McLarty as chief of staff may seem like a perfect choice. He’s someone who is reputed to be conciliatory and easygoing. He could allow her to function virtually as chief of staff. But that could be a trap for Hillary Clinton if she plans to involve herself in running the government. She wont have anyone in that job who can act as a buffer.
Washington wants the president to be the president. If the perception is that his wife is telling him what to do, it will only make him look weak. If he looks weak he will not be nearly as effective as he could be. Power is what Washington is all about. If it looks like the president isn’t powerful, people in this town can smell it a mile away. Symbols, appearances and perceptions are sometimes more important than reality.
Of course Hillary Clinton is going to tell her husband what she thinks, presumably about everything. The same way every First Lady does, the same way every wife does. Since she is bright and talented, one hopes he will listen. The country would probably be better off if she does have her input. Presumably he will tell her what he thinks about her work, too. The important thing is that this should be between them. If Hillary Clinton’s actually running the country, only Bill Clinton should know about it.
After Bill and Hillary Clinton initially touted themselves as presidential “partners,” her reception was not favorable. Being smart, Hillary changed her look and her demeanor, as she had changed her name years earlier. She looked and acted softer, took a back seat to Bill on the campaign trail when they were together, and generally presented herself as a traditional First Lady candidate. It was clever and it worked. But if she reverts to the co-candidate, copresidency role, people will feel betrayed, as if they were victims of false advertising.
Hillary Clinton is bright and articulate, a tremendous advocate for children’s issues, and extremely likable. She has it all. It would be tragic if she blew it when she could be such a force for good. She has a chance to change things in a way no other First Lady has-and she should do it as a person in her own right.
