Hillary’s Long Journey

She keeps on saying she hasn’t decided. Everyone else wants to know when, not if, she is going to announce her decision to take part in the fight for the White House.

Although there are two more years before the next U.S. presidential election, Hillary Clinton can no longer avoid the question — is she going to give it a try again, after losing the epic race for the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008? The carefully orchestrated tour promoting her recently released book “Hard Choices,” in which she tells the story of her secretary of state years, has been widely seen as the beginning of her White House campaign. She keeps on giving evasive answers to the above question, but none of the other possible Democratic contenders dares reach for the candidacy. Among her own flock, she’s been criticized for occupying the rink. As for Republicans, they only want to know — is it possible to defeat her, and if it is, who can do the job?

Before even announcing her intention to take part in the 2016 fight, Hillary has become the candidate everyone reckons with, but before she becomes a memorable president, one that will hopefully be remembered for a lot more than being the first woman in the post, there is plenty of work to be done.

Everyone against Hillary

Her strengths are obvious. It is hard to find a candidate who has gone through the heat of so many battles and is still ready to take on the presidential one. As a former first lady, she knows the inner workings of the White House. As a former senator, she knows the corridors of Congress and the turns of domestic politics. As a former secretary of state, she is fluent in diplomacy. Besides, the Clinton brand has a powerful machinery of donors and supporters readily waiting to just hear the signal and spring into action.

Yet Hillary has many enemies as well, and they have started to attack her even before her official decision has been made. She left the Department of State with an approval rating of 70 percent — with the exception of Colin Powell, that’s higher than any of the incumbents after 1948 — and the negative baggage of the attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, in which U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three more Americans were killed. Regardless of how much effort Republicans are going to put into politicizing the subject and keeping up its presence in the media, the electorate is going to be tired of hearing about Libya until 2016. Up to now, the damage has been contained. According to ABC News and Washington Post polls, a year and a half after she left the Department of State, 59 percent of Americans approve of the work she did as secretary of state, and 67 percent think she is a strong leader.

But critics won’t stop with Libya. A recent intimation by Karl Rove, a former George Bush advisor, suggesting that Hillary may have brain damage as a result of the concussion she had in 2012, was a tactless way to draw attention to her age. Hillary Clinton is going to turn 69 in 2016. The remark was also an indicator of how ugly and poisonous the attacks against her could be.

Besides, Hillary’s own words opened a new front against her in an interview with ABC during which she mentioned that at the time she left the White House with Bill Clinton, they were totally broke. Media supporting the Republican Party immediately responded. A Fox News commentator maliciously pointed out that although Bill Clinton was making $200,000, the Clinton family was struggling to pay the bills for the Whitewater investigation and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “A former president and first lady know full well that they are highly marketable commodities,” the anchor said, referring to the generous royalties the Clintons pick up for giving speeches and writing memoirs while “Uncle Sam [pays] much of their postage, phone and office rental expenses.”

Believing they had found the Achilles heel of Hillary Clinton, her opponents vigilantly looked for other facts to support the idea that she is disconnected with the worries and troubles the average American faces, and therefore, her place is not in the White House. Politico stirred up a conversation by publishing information about Chelsea Clinton’s compensation as a special correspondent for NBC. The television channel refused to provide information on the subject, but rumor has it that Chelsea’s salary was around $600,000, while the national average is between $50 and $60,000 annually, even $40,000 in some cases. The publication got a lot of attention on Twitter, whose users ironically concluded this must be the American dream come true — rising from being the daughter of broke parents to earning $600,000.

Hillary admitted that her comment in regards to her financial situation after leaving the White House was “not artful,” but added that they had owed over $10 million at the time. These facts are indeed a point of weakness. Anonymous sources who worked for the Obama campaign shared with The Washington Post that the finances of the Clinton family may turn into an issue, an issue that could be used against them the same way Obama attacked the Republican candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 for being a plutocrat who lives in another world at a time of economic hardship.

“The image of the wealthy guy has always been used in a presidential election,”* says Dr. Allen Louden, who teaches [a course called] “Presidential Rhetoric” at Wake Forest University. “It happened with Mitt Romney. It happened with John McCain. The latter wasn’t able to tell a reporter how many houses he has. This argument was used to point out that he is disconnected with reality. Obama also was portrayed as disconnected because he is too attached to intellectual circles. These types of accusations, though, usually fade away rather quickly because they are not perceived as substantial by the public.”*

Is She the One?

It is not just the opponents. Aside from fighting them, Hillary will have to position herself in the space of her own party. One of the subjects dear to Democrats is the rights of gays and lesbians. While in 2008 Hillary opposed gay marriage, she said to a CNN reporter that now her opinion has evolved. Another issue important to Democrats is the legalization of marijuana; Hillary believes that individual states are to make the decision on it. Her view on marijuana legalization was interpreted as a curtsey gesture toward one of the Republican Party’s core values — as little intervention from the federal government as possible. All this reinforces Hillary’s image as a candidate whose political ideas revolve around the center of the political spectrum, someone who appeals to a larger audience outside the Democratic Party.

Another crucial question that raises doubts across the board is whether she will be able to put an end to the paralyzing political polarization in Washington. The rise of the tea party pushes Republicans toward more radical decisions, while a disappointing economy makes populism appealing to many Democrats.

Another challenge for Hillary would be to distinguish herself from Obama without looking disloyal or distancing the Democratic constituency. She has done that in regards to Syria, claiming she disagreed with the president and stood her ground on the subject. “While she was secretary of state, the impression was that she does not allow the White House to define foreign policy,”* says Allen Louden.

Does she also have her own vision for the painfully slow economic recovery, unemployment and social disparity? That is the most decisive question, whose answer remains to be seen. The American middle class is uncertain of its future, and everything shows that the field of this uncertainty is where the next battle for the White House is going to take place.

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.