THE exchange was as witty as it was unexpected. A voice in the crowd rang out
among the beefy, blue-collar workers, many of whom sported tattoos.
“Hillary, marry me, baby!”
Hillary Clinton looked startled and laughed. “That is the kindest offer I have
had in a while, but it would probably get me arrested,” she said.
After Clinton’s extraordinary resurrection in the New Hampshire primary last
week, it was not only women who were cheering for her. Men were warming to
her as well.
Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk show host, who usually lumps
Clinton in with hatchet-faced “feminazis”, said she had never looked better
than on victory night. “She was relaxed and even sexy up there.”
The improbable proposal of marriage came at a rally for Clinton in the
industrial heart of Los Angeles, where working-class trade unionists,
Hispanics and a smattering of middle-class feminists had gathered on a
gloriously sunny day to cheer her on.
There, in one hall, were the most loyal members of her voting base, hewn out
of the most rock-solid components of the Democratic party.
The only people missing were Hollywood celebrities, some of whom have switched
over to Barack Obama, the new box-office sensation. He will be heading for
California to boost his support among them this week.
The preferences of Barbra Streisand for Clinton and Scarlett Johannson for
Obama seemed far removed from this unfashionable quarter of tinsel town. Yet
they reflected the same split between older, hard-core party loyalists and
young idealists dazzled by Obama’s message of hope.
Dale Chryst, a Vietnam veteran and “proud” union member for 25 years, said:
“Hillary is a grassroots person. She understands what we’re about. We’re
about the working person.
“Obama?” he shrugged. “He sounds good, but I tend to believe Hillary more.”
Clinton came to LA determined to look beyond this month’s unpredictable
primaries in Nevada and South Carolina to Super Tuesday on February 5, when
victory in populous states such as California could lock up the nomination
for her.
California alone provides 441 delegates out of a total of 4,040 at the
Democratic party convention, which will formally award the nomination this
summer. The most recent poll, taken in December, put Clinton ahead of Obama
by 36% to 22%. But one pollster, Mark DiCamillo, revealed this weekend that
a straw poll showed her lead shrinking to two points.
She has strong support among the large Hispanic community in Los Angeles,
while Obama is popular with the high-tech workers of Silicon Valley.
Clinton believes she can count on a bedrock of support from party regulars who
will form the main voting block when more than 20 states go to the polls on
Super Tuesday.
“It was great to win New Hampshire, but it’s a long process,” said Jay Carson,
her spokesman, who had feared her campaign was heading for oblivion after
Obama’s heady victory in Iowa. “It’s not about one primary or caucus.”
The New York Times reported yesterday that Obama was threatening Clinton on
her home turf in New York, where the primary contest is shaping up to be the
most competitive since 1992. It sends 281 delegates to the Democratic
convention.
Charles Rangel, who represents Harlem in Congress, predicted that Clinton -
“our favourite daughter” - would do extremely well but added that Obama’s
“electric” campaign would stimulate a big turnout.
Compounding the uncertainty is the continued presence in the race of John
Edwards, who came third in New Hampshire. He may be willing to pull out of
the race after South Carolina, where he was born, and throw his support
behind Obama in time for Super Tuesday.
By competing in South Carolina, Edwards could help Obama, insiders say,
because he has the potential to split the white vote with Clinton.
As part of her new approach, Clinton will be focusing her message on the
economy, which may soon tip into recession, and delivering it in a more
personal, “heartfelt” way. “For me, politics isn’t a game,” she said. “It’s
about your voices, your dreams and your future.”
The day before, she had gone on a walkabout in Las Vegas, where her supporters
were attacking Obama’s past criticisms of gambling. She knocked on doors
like a local politician and placed her hand on her heart while listening to
the concerns of voters.
Was she being cynical? Perhaps. Her closest advisers worried for months about
how to persuade people to like her and have finally found a formula. Peggy
Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s former speechwriter, identified it as “the soul in
the machine”.
They are wary, however, of overdoing the waterworks. The tears in her eyes in
a New Hampshire diner where she faltered in response to a voter’s question
about how she was coping created “a nice narrative for reporters”, said
Carson, “but you win by having people take a long, hard look at you”.
Clinton’s show of emotion when she thought the presidency was slipping from
her grasp is only part of the story of her comeback. It was her display of
grit, as well as that glimpse of humanity, which revived voters’ respect for
her. It evoked memories of Hillary, the survivor, who stood by her husband
through the humiliation of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and emerged battered,
yet somehow stronger.
Her story is the stuff of soap opera, almost as remarkable in its way as
Obama’s own tale of triumph over adversity.
Maya Angelou, the African-American author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
has stood by Clinton while her friend Oprah Winfrey, the television host, is
campaigning for Obama.
Angelou’s loyalty shows why it is premature to write off Clinton’s chances
among any group of voters, including African-Americans, who are expected to
form 50% of the electorate when South Carolina Democrats go to the polls in
13 days’ time.
“I made up my mind 15 years ago that if she ever ran for office, I’d be on her
wagon,” Angelou said. “My only difficulty with Senator Obama is that I
believe in going out with who I went in with.”
Angelou was recently voted one of the 10 most admired women in America -
Clinton topped the annual poll. She recited a poem at Bill Clinton’s
inauguration but then watched him let his wife down by fooling around with
Lewinsky, a White House intern.
“When he had his brush with Ms Lewinsky, the whole world was looking under Mrs
Clinton’s bedclothes. Many people expected her to fall or to become as hard
as a rock,” she said. “She did neither. I love that about her. She didn’t
pretend she wasn’t hurt and she didn’t become a virago.”
Angelou has had many late-night telephone conversations with Winfrey about the
merits of Obama versus Clinton. “She thinks he’s the best and I think my
woman is the best,” she said. “Oprah is a daughter to me, but she is not my
clone.”
According to Angelou, “You just know you are in a comfort zone,” by voting for
Clinton. It is an argument that Clinton hopes to win by hammering away at
the economy, which emerged in New Hampshire as the top concern among voters.
The memorable slogan from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, “It’s the economy,
stupid,” has come back into play at the very moment that his wife’s campaign
needed rescuing. Hillary can lean on Bill’s record of achievement while
lacking one of her own. “When President Bush came into office we had a
balanced budget and a trillion-dollar surplus,” she said in Los Angeles.
With oil at nearly $100 a barrel, shares falling and record foreclosures in
the housing market, the argument resonates.
“We’ve just got to dig ourselves out of it and I want to pass out shovels to
everybody,” Clinton said. She is proposing $70 billion package to stimulate
the economy, nearly half of which would be spent on a housing crisis fund.
Nancy Gutierrez, 48, a fourth-generation Mexican-American, turned up to hear
Clinton speak in Los Angeles on the day that the mortgage lender she worked
for was sold for a knockdown price to Bank of America to stave off
bankruptcy.
“I’d rather be here than deal with all that,” she said. She does not know if
there will be a job for her there in future.
“I actually love Obama. His ideas are great, but these are tough times,”
Gutierrez said. “We’re going to need somebody strong to get hold of the
economy and flip it. Hillary has been through it and knows how hard it is
going to be.”
In reality, Clinton has no more economic experience than Obama. When Gutierrez
said Hillary had been “through it”, she was referring to the way she coped
with her husband’s roving eye and the scandals that engulfed his presidency
rather than her economic prowess.
“It was a horrible thing that happened with Bill Clinton, but I liked the way
they worked together as a team. She kept her composure despite everything
that happened . . . It matured her and made her better,” she said.
After hogging the limelight in Iowa, Bill Clinton was excluded from his wife’s
victory podium in New Hampshire lest he remind voters of the past rather
than Obama’s promise of “change”.
Hillary has been rethinking her election strategy and drafting in some new
advisers, including the advertising guru, Roy Spence. She has also brought
in Maggie Williams, her chief of staff when she was first lady, and for a
while the highest-ranking African-American official the White House had
seen.
However, Bill has by no means been written out of the picture. Carson, who
used to be Bill’s spokesman before joining Hillary’s team, said firmly:
“There’s no better surrogate in a primary than Bill Clinton.”
The former president went on the Rev Al Sharpton’s radio show on Friday to
assuage fears among African-American power-brokers that he had spoken out
too harshly against Obama. He pivoted gracefully, saying that Obama’s story
was not the fairytale he had claimed it was. “He might win,” Bill Clinton
said. “I think he’s a very impressive man and he’s run a great campaign.”
The new spirit of generosity was possible only because of the Clintons’
growing confidence that they have defined Obama as the up-market yuppie
candidate, popular with east and west coast liberals, in contrast to their
tried and tested mass-market brand.
They are still in the midst of a fierce battle whose racial contours will be
more visible after Nevada holds its primary this Saturday and South Carolina
follows a week later. The Hispanic vote, in particular, is difficult to
categorise, yet could play a decisive role in Nevada, California and the
southwestern states.
Obama got a useful headstart by winning the backing of the 60,000-strong
Nevada culinary workers last week. “Hillary is going to have to really fight
for the Hispanic vote,” said Gutierrez. “Some of the older men have a
problem with women taking power.” However, she noted that tension between
the black and Latino communities could adversely affect Obama.
The biggest advantage to Clinton is among women, who voted overwhelmingly for
her in New Hampshire, though not Iowa. According to Robert Novak, a leading
US commentator, the much-derided polls would have correctly forecast a
two-point victory for Clinton last week had they foreseen that women would
make up 57% of voters.
The harsh treatment of Clinton during the New Hampshire primary reminded many
women of the double standards that remain in political life. “It’s okay for
a man to have wrinkles, he looks distinguished, but if it’s a woman, she’s
an old hag,” said Jalada Lagos, 57, who turned up to see Clinton in Los
Angeles. “I really feel the public is more afraid to vote for a woman
president than vote a black man into the White House.”
Whether the new-found admiration of men for Clinton will translate into votes
remains to be seen. It appears they were less impressed by her tears than by
the way she held her nerve long enough to persuade voters to give her a
second look.
For Obama:
Scarlett Johansson, George Clooney, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer
Aniston, Halle Berry, Leonard Nimoy, Cindy Crawford
For Clinton:
Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, Danny
DeVito, Donna Karan, Quincy Jones, Magic Johnson
Video: Hillary's response
to a marriage proposal
Video: Hillary crying
