Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review Feb. 10, 2000/ 4 Adar I, 5760

Suzanne Fields

Fields
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
David Corn
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Arianna Huffington
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports
Newswatch
Weekly Standard

Econophone

Trakdata


No seances with Eleanor


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- HILLARY CLINTON BOASTS of serving a fine omelet, but lots of pundits (including me) woke up with scrambled eggs on their faces when she finally formally announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate.

The early speculation that the first lady wouldn't run still looks wise in hindsight. She may think so yet. After leaving the White House she would, we assumed, want to relax, enjoying a little time with Chelsea. Two homes and a frantic commute are complicated and expensive. Living the life as a first lady is fun and it doesn't last long. She could make lots of money lecturing and advocating the causes she cares about without the weight of grubbing for votes.

Besides, who needs the New York press? Why run as a carpetbagger when in two years she could run from one of her home states of Illinois or Arkansas?

None of the above turned out to be persuasive. Her reasons, no doubt, are both personal and political. She gets perks bequeathed to few mortals who run for office. This mixes the good with the bad.

She has already spent millions of tax dollars for White House transportation to finance her jaunts to New York, which was easy on her pocketbook but not so popular with taxpayers. The first lady's limousines create traffic jams that make her travel through busy streets easier, but they provoke resentment in her new neighborhood.

By escaping her role as first wife, she leaves her jealous rage behind, puts Bill in his place (behind her on the podium). Instead of staying mad, she aims to get even. If she wins, she shows him. If she loses, she can blame him. Not a bad place for a wronged wife.

In the 18-minute video directed by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, Hillary was portrayed as a rising star, with her mother (not her husband) the supporting one. Nice touch. She was once again pretty in pink, exuding a light-hearted femininity that some feminists find cloying but which is thought to broaden her appeal to other women.

It's been widely observed that women who are like Hillary don't like Hillary. She's gone from being "one of them'' to being perceived as an opportunist, who will do and say anything to get elected, someone better at waffles than omelets.

Pro-choice women, for example, can't get a straight answer about whether she thinks "parental consent'' should be mandatory for a child's abortion. Once she thought it should be. Now she equivocates. The New York Observer calls this "Wellesley mash.''

Asked how she would vote on the Defense of Marriage Act, which would prohibit homosexual marriage, she replied that she would have voted for it, but not because she was for it, but because it was going to succeed.

This is classic "clintonspeak'' -- a form of rhetoric perfected by her husband. In fact, it's a knock-off of Bill's `approval` of the Gulf War: He would have voted for it, he said, although he agreed with those who voted against it.

But Hillary isn't quite as good at this as Bill. Some feminists choked on the first lady's sentimental musings when she and Bill unwrapped their "tchotchkes,'' old wedding gifts in the new house in Chappaqua. Said Hillary with no hint of irony: "It's a great personal experience for both of us.''

Hillary Clinton, noted for a tin ear, will need her husband's perfect pitch to engage voters on a personal level. She looks a voter straight in the eye while extending a firm handshake, suggesting deep empathy, as if she's in touch with his pain. But she'll need more than empathy to run in New York.

The race is a rare opportunity to watch her on her own. No one doubts her intelligence and charm in familiar circumstances. The test comes in confronting the unexpected, as in her pre-campaign flip-flops in the Middle East, on clemency for Puerto Rican terrorists, her judging of the cops in the Diallo shooting as already guilty.

"Wherever I go as first lady, I am always reminded of one thing: that Eleanor Roosevelt had been there before,'' Hillary Clinton said in 1998.

But Mrs. Roosevelt never ran for office. After FDR's death Democrats asked her to run in New York, but she said she could do more for her causes as a former first lady. She was probably right.



Up

02/07/00: Campaigning like our founding fathers
02/03/00: When neo-Nazis have short memories
01/31/00: George W. -- 'Ladies man' and 'man's man'
01/27/00: Dead white males and live white politicians
01/25/00: Smarting over presidential smarts
01/21/00: A post-modern song for `The Sopranos'
01/19/00: When personality is a long-distance plus
01/13/00: French lessons in amour --- and marriage
01/10/00: Reaching for the Big Golden Apple
01/07/00: Liddy Dole as the face of feminism
01/04/00: Hillary: From victim to victor
12/30/99: 'Dream catchers' for the millennium
12/27/99: In search of a candidate with strength and eloquence
12/21/99: The president as First Lady
12/16/99: Columbine with blurred hindsight
12/09/99: Homeless deserve discriminating attention
12/07/99: Casual censors and deadly know-nothings
12/02/99: Why mom didn't make general: A reality tale
11/30/99: Potholes on the road to the Promised Land
11/25/99: A feast for the spirit and the stomach
11/23/99: Fathers need to say 'I (can) do'
11/18/99: Adventures of a conservative pundit
11/15/99: Traveling with Jefferson on the information highway
11/11/99: Wanted: 'Foliage of forbiddinness' for the oval office
11/09/99: Eggs, art and rotten commerce
11/05/99: Al Gore, 'Alpha Male'. Bow wow.
11/01/99: Gay love
10/28/99: Lose one Dole, lose two
10/26/99: Rebels with a violent cause
10/21/99: Reforming parents, reforming schools
10/19/99: The male mystique -- he shops
10/13/99:The campaign of the Teletubbies
10/08/99: Money is in the eye of the art dealer
10/01/99: Lincoln's 'Almost Chosen People'
09/29/99: Introducing Bill and Hillary Bickerson
09/27/99: Must we wait for the next massacre?
09/24/99: Miss America meets Miss'd America
09/21/99: Princeton's 'professor death'
09/16/99: The Cisneros lesson
09/13/99: No clemency for personal politics
09/08/99: M-M-M is for manhood
08/30/99: Blocking the schoolhouse door
08/27/99: No kick from cocaine
08/23/99: Movies don't kill people
08/19/99: A rude awakening
08/16/99: Dubyah and that 'language' thing
08/09/99: Chauvinist sows -- oink oink

©1999, Suzanne Fields. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate