Unflattering Books Cause Hardly a Ripple
Politics as Usual As Sen. Clinton Traverses Iowa

By Dan Balz and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 27, 2007

As Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) campaigned across Iowa this weekend, she was asked about the war in Iraq, illegal immigration and even whether her husband, former president Bill Clinton, might serve as secretary of state if she makes it to the White House.

But at no time during events in Algona, Mason City, Charles City or Emmetsburg was she asked for her reaction to a pair of soon-to-be-released books that portray her and her husband in an unflattering light and that recount in illuminating detail the stormy history of their days together in Arkansas and later in the White House.

Clinton advisers say the early reaction confirms their belief that Americans long ago digested those controversies, drew whatever conclusions they wanted and moved on.

"This is not the first time we've had books written about the senator that were less than favorable, campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said. "Our experience is that there is some initial media interest in them and then they don't have any impact on the race."

Neither book has been officially released. When they are in early June, both will be backed by major publicity tours and advertising. As such, even without new bombshells, the books threaten to plunge candidate Clinton back into the soap opera that was so often the Clinton administration.

She remains one of the most divisive figures in American politics, and a major challenge for her campaign is to turn someone whose history is so thoroughly familiar and controversial into a future-oriented candidate seen by the voters as capable of changing a country wracked by partisanship and political polarization.

"HRC's deadly problem," Republican strategist Mike Murphy said in an e-mail message, "is that, while she's running in a change election, most of her identity is about the past, which is a very bad position to be in."

Even some Republicans agreed with Clinton's team that the books will have minimal effect on Clinton's campaign. For Clinton haters, one strategist said, the books will reinforce what they believe already, but they will change no minds.

Democratic strategists not attached to Clinton's campaign offered harsher assessments, although they spoke on the condition of anonymity because they do not want to get into a public fight with the former first couple.

One Democrat called the books a reminder of "the tawdriness of the Dogpatch days," while another said, "It's not a deal killer, but it reinforces people's preconceived notions about her." He said his rule of thumb for her campaign is this: "The more the conversation is about the past, the worse for her. The more it's about the future, the better for her."

The story told in the new volumes -- "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Carl Bernstein; and "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. -- is, in its broadest outlines, familiar to most Americans.

The books recount the roller-coaster ride through the Clinton presidency and his tenure as governor of Arkansas, raising anew issues of marital strife and infidelity, Clinton's strong and sometimes controlling personality, the scandals that ultimately led to impeachment, the failed effort to reform health care and much more.

The senator's advisers, both those close to her and ones more distant, have acknowledged that she is likely to face harsh questions about her past -- and her husband's. While her strategy so far has been to ignore the more unpleasant chapters, some of her most senior advisers have said they expect her to address the subject more directly at some point.

They books may not radically change the public's image of Hillary Clinton, but they could once again remind voters of episodes that may have faded from public memory while adding fresh details that could provide ammunition for her political adversaries.

Bernstein's book, for example, reports that then-White House adviser George Stephanopoulos described to unnamed colleagues Clinton's responses to the White House Travel Office case and other scandals as "Jesuitical lying." Stephanopoulos, now anchor of ABC's "This Week" program, declined to comment when reached Friday.

Aside from providing details of their marriage, the Gerth-Van Natta book portrays the Clintons calculating their rise to power even before getting married. The book reports that the Clintons formulated a 20-year plan in the 1970s to reach the White House, citing a former Bill Clinton girlfriend who said she saw a letter written by Hillary outlining their ambitions and former White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta, who said the president once described their long-term plan to him. Panetta did not return a phone call Friday.

Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, said yesterday that the topic of the Clintons' marriage is "a closed case" for most Americans. "I think people are respecting the privacy of their relationship," he said. "It's a long time now from 1998. We're eight years later. She's been a spectacular senator. I think that to bring up something that is from almost a decade ago now -- this is not where the public is."

Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist and lobbyist who supports Clinton's candidacy, took a similar view about public interest in the senator's past. "There will be efforts by her opponents and the news media to go back there, but I think the public doesn't have an appetite for that. . . . The news media will have a hard time sustaining it without real news."

Clinton advisers argued that the white heat of past controversies has cooled as she has moved from being first lady to a senator twice elected with handsome margins. Past controversies, Penn said, "were intense and were overcome in 2000 and now they're not intense. I find people trying to swing for the fences to bring them back are missing the mark."

Still, her advisers acknowledge they prefer that voters learn more about the candidate than the image that is seared into public consciousness. As she campaigns, Clinton sometimes describes herself as the most famous person nobody really knows. It is her way of asking voters to take a fresh look at her, and her campaign advisers have sought to reintroduce her in more favorable light.

What they hope is that Clinton will project a sense of warmth and humor that will challenge the image of her as cold and calculating. They also want voters to know more about her roots. In Iowa this weekend, she said as she often does that she was born "in a middle-class family in the middle of the country" and with added emphasis "in the middle of the century."

Wolfson described this process as more filling in the blanks than reinventing Clinton's persona. "People don't know where she was born, where she grew up, what she did before the White House," he said. What advisers want voters to take away from this is that she "has spent her entire adult life fighting on behalf of children and families."

Controlling a candidate's image is crucial to a successful presidential campaign, and the Clintons are expert in this tug of war. Bernstein, who gained fame as a partner of Bob Woodward in uncovering the Watergate scandal while at The Washington Post, said his goal from the start was to provide a biographical portrait that is "the best obtainable version of the truth" in print.

"Hopefully this book will begin a debate about the reality of the person instead of the cartoonish figure presented by her enemies, her acolytes and in her own autobiography," he said in an interview on Friday. "None of the three is anything close to what the reality is."

In Iowa this weekend, Clinton seemed more concerned about an internal campaign memo suggesting she pull out of the state -- which she said she has no intention of doing -- than about the forthcoming books. She spent part of her time shaking hands and signing autographs, and when she visited a pizza parlor in Algona her hands were stained blue from a supporter's pen that had exploded on them.

Some Iowans said they had heard about the new books. Millie White, who attended an event in Emmetsburg, dismissed them as a sign that "somebody just wants to make money." But Barbara Brownmiller said that, while she wants to support Clinton, "my only concern is people won't leave the back stuff back."

Bacon reported from Iowa. Staff writers Peter Baker and Anne E. Kornblut contributed to this report.