To Clinton's friends and advisers, scenes like the above--in which she effortlessly wins over people who, we're told, are supposed to hate her--boost their contention that the real Hillary is ideologically complex and surprisingly down-to-earth. They describe her as genuinely moderate on cultural and national security issues (hence her comfort evoking American values before a Democratic audience), say she has a voracious appetite for policy reminiscent of her husband (hence her mastery of farming arcana) and describe her common-sense economic populism as born of her Illinois upbringing (hence her ability to speak to the economic concerns of farmers).

"People have gained a more complete view of Hillary in the Senate than they had when she was in the White House," says Mandy Grunwald, a close Hillary adviser. "People are getting past the cartoon version of her and seeing that she's culturally moderate and sensitive to rural and small-town America. That mix has always been a part of her."

Of course, to Clinton's critics, particularly on the right, the same scenes just as easily demonstrate the opposite: that her Senate career has been merely a warm-up exercise for 2008. The paeans to American values, the small-town banter, the talk of our troops abroad--it's all a cynical effort to make people forget the Hillary who proposed a big-government takeover of healthcare and banned Bill's cigars from the White House. The right's game plan here is pretty obvious: If she has "moved to the middle," then she must be, as Dick Morris wrote recently, "a liberal who pretends moderation when she has to."

To critics on the left, however, the real Hillary is far from reliably liberal--and to them, that's the problem. Someone of her stature might have moved the national dialogue to the left on many fronts. Indeed, many progressives wholeheartedly backed her 2000 Senate run, expecting her to carry the banner for liberal causes in, say, the manner of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. But they've been disappointed. Clinton has studiously avoided becoming the ideological warrior on big issues many supporters hoped for. "She certainly hasn't been a liberal trumpet like Kennedy, even though she's the Senator from New York and has all the freedom she needs," says Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. "Kennedy has been a leading opponent of the GOP's militarism. He's called for large investments in education, Medicare for all. Hillary hasn't been out front on any of those issues."

What's more, there's some truth to the claim that various of Clinton's recent public statements and policy positions have come at a real cost to progressivism, much the way her husband's "triangulation" damaged the left in the 1990s. Her justification for voting in support of the Iraq War sounded like a cross between her husband's verbal parsing and John Kerry's maddening rhetorical contortions: "Bipartisan support for this resolution makes success in the United Nations more likely and, therefore, war less likely." The vote seemed to many a huge missed opportunity. A senator from New York, the prime target on September 11, voting against the war might have given a helpful boost to the global antiwar movement, which at the time was mobilizing against America's invasion of Iraq.

More recently, Clinton's flirtation with conservative Senator Rick Santorum--they jointly requested federal funds for research on how electronic media affect children--made liberals uneasy because it stank of pandering to so-called "values" voters. But the Santorum dalliance amounted to more than a mere difference of opinion with traditional liberals. It gave bipartisan cover not just to Hillary but to Santorum as well--legitimizing one of the Senate's ultraconservative standard-bearers. That undercuts broader Democratic efforts to win on various fronts by painting the GOP as captive of the hard right.

Finally, Clinton's January speech seeking "common ground" with prolifers on reducing pregnancies seemed intended to distance her from beleaguered prochoice leaders. She might, for instance, have looked for ways to deliver her message with new NARAL president Nancy Keenan, who's been sounding a similar message. Instead, Clinton's speech enables the right to paint prochoice groups as pro-abortion.

Yet for all that, there's no denying that Clinton has been extraordinarily successful, at least politically. Her approval rating in New York is nudging 70 percent. Many Republicans are on record as offering high praise. Consider that both Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki have punted on challenging her in 2006, even though dethroning Hillary would provide untold national attention and possibly be a springboard to the presidency in 2008.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next »

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.