A tough juggling act for Clinton

Juggles identities

MANCHESTER, N.H.
WITH HER mother and daughter at her side, Hillary Clinton told an audience of mostly female voters at the local YWCA that she understood their needs and, as president, would make family-friendly policies her priority.

She was articulate, personable, and substantive. But, of course, she referred frequently to programs linked to her husband's White House years, reinforcing a theme in that day's Washington Post - that Hillary Clinton is running for president "in a tight embrace of Bill Clinton's record." The Post article on Saturday also suggested that both Clintons "are making the case that theirs was a co-presidency."

Asked in an interview afterward if she viewed herself as co-president, Hillary Clinton replied, "No . . . I was a member of the team. I was a member of the White House team that was involved with trying to make a lot of changes . . . I think that people who are running for president should lay out for Americans their record, their experiences, their qualifications, their vision, their plan, and their understanding of how to make it all happen, and that's what I'm doing."

She's also doing what a lot of women do - juggling identities. In Clinton's case, she's a mother, daughter, US senator, and wife of a former president. But, the last role overshadows everything else, forcing Clinton, the presidential candidate, to define "experience" mostly from the vantage point of former first lady. There's some irony in that for a Wellesley College and Yale Law School graduate like Hillary Clinton. But she disputes the notion that Bill Clinton's large presence sends the message that a woman needs a powerful husband in order to run for president herself.

"Everybody's spouse is out there campaigning," said Clinton. "Some of the wives of some of my opponents are very active campaigners. They obviously support their husbands. And I supported my husband for years as he was in the political arena . . . I think it is absolutely appropriate that he would not only be supporting me privately, but doing so publicly."

Pundits may view Bill Clinton's help as a mixed blessing, but not Hillary Clinton: "It's been fascinating to see how Bill has understood the challenges of being someone who is trying to make the case for someone else," she said. "That's exactly what he's trying to do for me and that's what I have done for him for so many years."

Clinton is trying to connect what she views as the accomplishments of the Clinton administration to her agenda for the future. Part of that, she said, is weighing her record for change "long before my husband ever became president." That includes expanding health insurance coverage for children; improving the foster care and adoption system; advocating for education reform as first lady of Arkansas and as a senator from New York; and helping to pass legislation to assist family caregivers.

"We've been inflicted by a sense of fatalism under this (Bush) administration," said Clinton. ". . . There's this sense that we're not up to the challenge, that we can't fix problems and give people better opportunities. You don't have to go back very far in history to see that's just not true, to rebut this sense of built-in resignation that the Bush administration has basically promoted when it comes to our government."

The message should be a powerful one. But it's often lost in the overall rush to deconstruct the Clinton marriage, rather than the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Clinton's rivals are challenging how much credit she should get for the positives of the Clinton years, while happily burdening her with the negatives.

The candidate who last month told Katie Couric that the Democratic nominee "will be me" now says: "You have to make your best case . . . but if you can't seal the deal with the voters that you would be the best president and they can trust you, your experience, your understanding of the world to do what they believe should be done in the country, you can run a great campaign but you can't overcome that."

She sees herself as a "hardworking candidate who gets up every day and tries to persuade voters to support me."

After a year of campaigning, she's still trying to connect her experience as daughter, mother, US senator, and wife of a former president to a commitment to change. It's a tough juggling act, but Hillary Clinton may be just tough enough to pull it off.

Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.