The key is to run locally, but think nationally. Running locally means getting a New York driver’s license and actually living in her new house in Chappaqua for a while, even if it looks to the world like a trial separation. It means convincing voters that she absolutely, positively won’t tie up traffic anymore. Thinking nationally means changing the subject from the diversion du jour to larger problems. It means turning Trent Lott into the Suha Arafat of the Potomac.
Beyond her own ham-handedness, Hillary’s biggest problem is that she essentially holds two jobs–First Lady and New York Senate candidate. The former requires the skills of a deferential diplomat and indulgent helpmate; the latter calls on asphalt-jungle talents like sucker-punching and eyes in the back of your head. She must essentially resign the first job to win the second, and the West Bank business is a good example why. Foreign leaders (or their wives) often say ridiculous things about Israel; the reason we have diplomats is to figure out how to respond to them. What was Hillary supposed to do when Yasir Arafat’s wife slurred Israel? Walk out? Scream “Shut up!”? The only sensible course for a First Lady was to check with Washington for guidance before responding, which she did, though it took too long.
But a real politician (a job description Hillary has yet to earn) would have realized that a picture kissing the wife of Yasir Arafat wouldn’t look so terrific, especially in New York. Recall how in 1979 President Jimmy Carter helped seal his own doom with a kiss on the cheek of Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev.
To turn every miscue into a fiasco, Hillary can always depend on the New York Post. The Post is now a Gotham City symbol–as New York as a bagel with a shmeer. While the tabloid, owned by right-winger Rupert Murdoch, has a circulation of only 437,000, it sets the tone for the rest of the media. News magazines (including NEWSWEEK) and cable networks use the clever screaming headlines to represent the pulse of the city; local TV swims in currents created by the paper’s coverage. Almost everyone usually fails to mention that the paper is biased against the Clintons. And there’s no countervailing tabloid. When the Post ran its SHAME ON HILLARY headline, the New York Daily News, a more objective paper, did not cover a crackdown on street people with GIULIANI TO HOMELESS: DROP DEAD.
Going forward, Hillary must adopt a media strategy she hates: openness. For all the Clinton fatigue, familiarity might actually breed a bit of grudging respect. The more reporters see of her, the more they’ll see past the caricatures to her command of the issues a senator actually votes on. But that means she’ll have to cut the platitudes and start saying something unusual and provocative, which she hasn’t yet.
Hillary has been burned so many times that she’s unlikely to take a cue from John McCain and spend hours on end with the press corps. She’s not humorless, but she remains much too controlled for the let’s-get-naked nature of New York politics. She was at it again last week with that “spontaneous” question from the president of the teachers union that prompted her informal declaration of her Senate candidacy. These scripted events make her look like Elizabeth Dole. Giuliani’s sincere meanness will beat her insincere sweetness every time.
Even so, Giuliani has his own big if largely unnoticed problems. While all eyes were on Hillary this fall, the mayor made the mistake of endorsing the congressional GOP agenda, from killing the nuclear test-ban treaty to supporting a $790 billion federal tax cut that left no money for the health, education and other social programs that New Yorkers tend to favor. (Giuliani has given himself more wiggle room on guns and abortion.) If Hillary can “nationalize” the election–make it as much about the GOP Congress as the Brooklyn Museum–she’ll wear better over time. On issue after issue, polls show the Democrats are closer to the public than Republicans, often by margins of 80 to 20 percent in New York. Her whole campaign will likely be about reminding voters that senators don’t put squeegee men in jail, they vote on a patient’s bill of rights. Watch for the Hillary forces to rope every Trent Lott position around Giuliani’s neck, even if it complicates her husband’s life in Washington.
That may not work, because the press may not care. Its focus won’t be on child-care tax credits and low-income housing initiatives, no matter how hard Hillary tries. To win over undecided voters, the First Lady may have to act a little less like a lady. That doesn’t require descending to Giuliani’s level, but it does mean being more aggressive, and more honest about her political motives. New Yorkers demand a certain style. In order to look smart and competent again, Hillary needs to get mad, get sassy, get off her comfortable White House podium and on to the New York playground, where even Protestants learn to talk with their hands.
