What Women See When They See Hillary (Page 3)

At least part of the problem with Hillary is Hillary, as in her outsized and often caricatured public persona, which makes it hard to figure out just who she is. Is she a misunderstood moderate, accused of selling out positions she never held? Ruth Mandel, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, certainly thinks so: "She is a centrist. She is a political pragmatist in the most solid American tradition."

Or is she a much-maligned liberal, whose Senate voting record on critical issues places her even with Obama and solidly to the left of progressive favorite John Edwards? So say the ratings of Americans for Democratic Action. Then there are those who label her the ultimate political operator, ever eager to trade principle for poll numbers. Her many critics certainly have no shortage of evidence to muster toward their cause. Claims made on either side of the "Hillary divide" are varied, confusing, often contradictory and sometimes compelling--perhaps because the debate over Hillary is very often not about Hillary at all.

In a 1993 Time magazine cover story, Margaret Carlson described the then-First Lady as "the medium through which the remaining anxieties over feminism are being played out." In 2007, however, Hillary Clinton's presidential bid is becoming a lightning rod for a debate within feminism, and over its goals. What do we liberated women want: to join the clubhouse or burn it down?

Forty years after the launch of the modern women's movement, there are still no easy answers to that question. And it is why, once you get past the rhetoric, the emotion Hillary Clinton most often evokes is painful ambivalence, even among her harshest feminist critics. "Women are especially hard on Hillary because she's such a Rorschach and we all want her to be exactly like us, whoever we are," said Ephron in a recent Salon article. But feminists will also just as readily acknowledge the high price of playing with the big boys, even when they don't like her one bit. "She tried to be something different [as a First Lady], and she was ultimately beaten into submission--by the media, the voters, the politicos," says Friedman. "I don't know what I would expect her to do. I couldn't expect myself to do better in the same place. I really don't."

For all her skepticism about the value of electing minorities to high office and her personal affinity for Edwards, Jervis says she balks at the idea of voting for a white male in the Democratic primary when she has the historic opportunity to choose otherwise. "I'm not sure what will happen when I actually step into the voting booth and have to pull that lever," she says. But she has no doubt that if Hillary Clinton does make it past the primaries, "I know I'll have an emotional reaction to a Hillary candidacy. It is going to be meaningful to me."

Whether or not Hillary wins the nomination, makes it to the big white house or falls by the wayside, her admirers and critics alike understand that she has done far more than any of her predecessors for women in national politics simply by running. She is the first woman to be the frontrunner for her party's presidential nomination--with the blessing of the old boys' club, i.e., the Democratic Leadership Council, no less.

But equally important, as Faye Wattleton points out, whatever her failings, Hillary Clinton is no Pat Schroeder, whose 1988 presidential bid ended early and ignominiously in a flood of tears. "This is not a candidate who is going to dissolve in the enormous heat of presidential politics," she says. Over the past fifteen years, every aspect of Hillary's life has been subjected to the kind of scrutiny--and many times abuse--that would make male politicians cry. As the latest crop of biographies demonstrate, the media's appetite for Hillary "exposés" shows no signs of waning. Carl Bernstein's A Woman in Charge and Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., spend 1,000-plus pages between them re-examining every personal, political, romantic and sartorial decision she's ever made, often with unflattering results. And there will be plenty more of the same over the next year. "Someone who can conduct herself with credibility under that kind of scrutiny and hold up to it is definitely opening the door for a future woman in the White House. She must be given credit for that," says Wattleton.

Hillary Clinton is the first female candidate--love her or hate her--who is impossible to dismiss simply because she is a woman, even by Republican strategists like Frank Luntz, who offered this caution: "Put gender aside. Just treat her like you would any other candidate." It's not exactly the end of patriarchy, but it's surely reason enough for all feminists--left, right or center--to cheer.

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