Hillary Clinton in the News: Gender and Authenticity in American Politics

Chapter 1. Hillary Clinton as Campaign Surrogate: U.S. Presidential Campaigns—1992 and 1996

CHaPter 1 Hillary Clinton as Campaign Surrogate U.S. Presidential Campaigns—1992 and 1996 onJanuary20,2007,HillaryRodhamClintonendedweeks,months,andeven years of speculation with the simple words, “I’m In,” as she announced her formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the 2008 presidential campaign.1 The person whom Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein called the“mostfamouswomanintheworld”2 hadfinallyventuredintowhatMSNBC’s Tucker Carlson described as the “longest full-scale, full-blown, talk-about-itevery -day run-up to a national election in American history.”3 For Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, the issue of her political authenticityoccupiedtheattentionofmanyinthepress—apreoccupationthat had dogged the first lady from 1992 onward. During the 2008 contest, many journalists suggested that Clinton’s most authentic self was displayed during two key mediated moments from the 1992 presidential campaign. The first involved her response to allegations of Bill Clinton’s alleged extramarital affairs during a January 26, 1992, 60 Minutes special: “You know, I’m not sitting here, somelittlewomanstandingbymymanlikeTammyWynette.”4 Thesecondinvolved her reaction to Democratic primary candidate Jerry Brown’s questions about her unethical legal practices when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas . The following day, Clinton justified her decision to “fulfill my profession” instead of having “stayed home and baked cookies and had teas.”5 Revealingtheforceofthesemediatedmemoriessomefifteenyearsaftertheir initial airing, Tucker Carlson and Rosa Brooks of the LosAngelesTimes engaged in a poignant exchange on January 29, 2007: Clinton as Campaign Surrogate • 25 CarlSoN: When was the last time you heard Hillary Clinton say something really courageous, counterintuitive, something that all the cool kids disagree with . . . ? BrookS: About 1992 . . . CarlSoN: The “baking cookies” line? BrookS: Yes, the baking cookies line, the Tammy Wynette line . . . That was the real Hillary.6 ThepreoccupationwithClinton’sauthenticityandthemysterysurrounding hertruepoliticalimagewasrevealedmostvividlyinthesentimentsofMSNBC’s ChrisMatthewsonJune1,2007,whenhereferencedBernstein’sargumentthat Clinton’s “biggest problem is that she appears inauthentic.” He then wondered aloud:“Butifthewomanisn’tTammyWynette,isnocookiebakerandnobody’s fool, then who is she?”7 Formanyjournalists,HillaryClinton’smostauthenticmomentswerealigned withwhatsomecalledherfeministcommitments.OfClinton’spoliticalimage in the early stages of her national public life, Paula Zahn of CNN remembered the Clinton of 1992 as the “outspoken feminist who put down the stand-byyour -man crowd.” Yet, by the 2008 campaign, many in the news business had come to question her commitment to feminism. Republican strategist Amy Holmes argued on Paula Zahn Now in March 2007 that “Hillary [was] trying to soften her image” away from that of a “feminist” to avoid what she argued was her tendency to be “shrill or difficult” as reflected by the “I don’t stand by my man” utterance.8 TheseimagetransformationssuggestedClinton’slackofpoliticalauthenticity in favor of political expediency. In 1992, one cultural anxiety expressed by CBS Evening News related to the potential of Hillary Rodham Clinton to feminize the spaces of the presidency by being “out front and outspoken . . . a symbol of the national debate about women and work and power.”9 By the time she stepped intothespacesofthe2008presidentialcampaign,however,theconcernbysome becameherexhibitionoftoomuchmasculinityandnotenoughfeminism.During a CNN broadcast from June 18, 2007, media scholar Susan Douglas of the University of Michigan asserted that “people feel like Hillary has tried too hard to be more like a man,” losing what Carol Costello of CNN pondered was “her mantle of political feminism” in favor of “political masculinity.”10 The frames of Clinton’s feminism, thus, converged with notions of her political inauthenticity to raise doubts about her true political convictions. Even as Clinton was portrayed as all empowering in certain stories about her presidential candidacy, other journalists undermined the strength of her politicalleadership.WhenChrisMatthewswonderedaloudaboutBillClinton’s 26 • CHaPter 1 role in a Hillary Clinton White House, he concluded that “some people think Bill Clinton is still the boss.”11 Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post dubbed Hillary Clinton a “wonkish mommy” during a MSNBC broadcast from January22 ,2007,undercuttingherpoliticalcloutthroughademeaningreferenceto Clinton’s“mommy”status.12 TheseconstructionsofClinton,ofcourse,worked to undermine her power rhetorically even before a final decision was made by voters over her presidential preparedness. The press coverage of the 2008 political race thus reflected the news frames and linguistic residuals from the 1992 campaign, where Clinton was depicted as “polarizing,” as possessing “likeability” issues, and as a political “lightning rod” regardless of the political role she served.13 The television news coverage of the 1992 campaign provided the baseline news frames that were subsequently used to authenticate and inauthenticate Clinton not only in 1992 but over the next sixteen years of her presence in the national spotlight. If Clinton’s behaviorseemedtocontradictthecharactertraitsnaturalizedinthebaselineframes , the press would amplify a Clinton makeover...