Senator
Hillary Clinton
Notes from Evan Smith
"She needs no introduction. That’s what more than a year on the campaign trail will do for you — a year of front-page headlines, tv commercials, whistle stops, talk show drop-bys, attacks by various vast conspiracies in print and online, and debate after debate after debate — not to mention seven years in the U.S. Senate, eight years as First Lady, and a total of 35 years, by her count, pushing progressive policies and in private and public life. It’s hard to imagine a more recognizable name, or face, at this point than Hillary Clinton’s, which has a fair amount to do with her status as frontrunner at the start of the Democratic presidential campaign. She was, for good or ill, the party’s biggest brand, with a resume and roster of accomplishments to back up the widely held assumption that the nomination was hers to lose. Just the same, celebrity has its downsides, and so Senator Clinton found out these last several months, not that she didn’t already know, that she who rises fast falls fast. The horse race narrative of the campaign has kept careful, sometimes gleeful watch over her ups and downs: her drubbing in Iowa, her comeback in New Hampshire, her further drubbing in South Carolina, her wins in the crucial states of California, New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey on Super Tuesday, and then, bracingly, her ten straight losses, some by astounding margins, in the cacuses and primaries that followed. Now, as we all know, comes Texas on March 4, along with Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Win here and she goes on. Lose here and — well, that’s not as clear. Her famous husband and one of her most famous supporters, James Carville, have each characterized Texas as a do-or-die firewall. The candidate herself is not so sure, as you’re about to hear. Senator Clinton was kind enough to give us thirty minutes early in the morning of February 22, not even twelve hours after she debated Barack Obama to a draw in Austin, to talk about issues of concern to voters in our fair state, as well as the hardball tactics she says she’ll employ if this thing goes all the way to the convention. Anyone who says it’s over, or that she’s planning to make a graceful exit from the race some time soon, had better think again." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 2.28.08
