Vanity Fair, August 2001
by Gail Sheehy
From behind, the silhouette of the freshman senator from New York looks like that of a man. The ill-fitting bodice of First Lady has been ripped off and replaced by long-jacketed pantsuits allowing her to clasp her hands low, behind the back, and march about with the authoritative military stance of a man. Senator Clinton can now plant her feet on the royal blue carpet of the United States Senate and address “My distinguished colleague from New Mexico”as one among equals. She is magnetic to the men. Constantly surrounded by men. Powerful men: the senate leaders, committee chairmen, floor managers. One moment she‚s in a strategic huddle with the Democratic leader Tom Daschle and liberal lieutenants Teddy Kennedy and Chris Dodd, the next she is striding across the aisle to schmooze with Senators John Warner and Jim Jeffords (then still Republican), and woo them into supporting her national teacher recruitment campaign. If one didn‚t focus on the blonde helmet hairdo we could all draw in our sleep, one might mistake Hillary Clinton for just one of the boys.
That is not to say the freshman senator from New York has shed her femininity. If anything, she uses it more now than ever. After a decisive vote, she makes a beeline for the white-domed icon of the Senate who will inevitably be standing, one arm tucked in his silk vest and one planted on his desk, Daniel Webster style, and the former First Lady will bow her head and virtually genuflect before Senator Robert Byrd. When Kennedy orates from the floor, often to a nearly empty chamber, one member is almost certain to be there gazing adoringly at that still-handsome, silver-maned lion in winter: Hillary. Teddy will flash her the big toothy boyish grin that is the signature of lusty American men like Kennedy and Dodd and Bill Clinton. Hillary looks upon these men as her protectors. And they love it. But she hardly neglects Republican men. Indeed, she makes a point of seeking out some of the most rabid conservatives and telling them funny stories, fluttering her hands at Pete Domenici‚s jokes, letting Orin Hatch lay a hand on the small of her back, stoking the arm of, imagine this, Trent Lott. From my perch in the Senate gallery I mumble, “She’s doing a Bill.” A senate aide whispers to me, “The Senate is a very touchy feely place. And she’s always nodding, whatever they say, ‘Your husband is an asshole’ she reaches out and puts her arm around them.”
Where did this retail political skill come from? In the early months of her New York Senatorial campaign Hillary was stiff as Queen Elizabeth in a cartwheel hat on a windy day. And just about everyone predicted that she could never get along in that tight, collegial, male-dominated body where half of the other side wanted to throw her husband out of the White House. Wrong.