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Highlights from the New York Times Profile of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton

Mark Leibovich's New York Times profile of journeyman presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is a must read. However, if you'd rather not spend the time, or have trouble following anything longer than a blog post, here are a few of the highlights:

1. Hillary Clinton ate a moose

Leibovich saw a moose on his way to meet Hillary in New Hampshire on the Fourth of July. Reporter and subject then seized on this anecdote in order to establish a human connection. Clinton, for example, described her "Into the Wild" summer in Alaska among the moose:

She had seen a few in her day, she told me. ‘‘I’ve eaten moose, too,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ve had moose stew.’’

Clinton explained that during college she worked one summer in Alaska, washing dishes at a resort. She was 21, and her energy and freedom felt limitless; she took long hikes in the midnight sun. ‘‘The guides told us the most dangerous animals in the park — more than the grizzlies, because the grizzlies will basically ignore you — were the moose,’’ she said. Natives knew to keep their distance. But the moose were all over, impossible to miss. ‘‘Oh, I mean like, between you and me,’’ Clinton said, and I thought for a second she was about to tell me something conspiratorial (‘‘between you and me’’), but in fact she was simply describing how close she had been to a moose, roughly the same distance as we were sitting from each other...

2. Practically everything is "off the record," even the campaign office

Hillary's campaign tried really hard to make almost every aspect of Leibovich's interactions with the candidate off the record. He eventually appealed to Clinton in person to allow some portions of their interview be on the record. Campaign press aide Jesse Ferguson told Leibovich prior to a visit to the campaign headquarters in Brooklyn that "the office itself is [off the record]." They eventually agreed that details about the office would merely be embargoed prior to publication.

3. Hillary Clinton is witty, creative, and spontaneous (according to aides)

Clinton aides wanted to make sure that Leibovich knew that Hillary was personally responsible for the fun, quirky aspects of her campaign:

In the kickoff rally for her campaign last month, Clinton said she would not be fazed by the accelerated graying of hair brought on by presidential stresses — because, she said, ‘‘I’ve been coloring it for years.’’ The line, which she had used previously, got a nice laugh. It was a good moment (relatable), and later I would receive a call from someone who would only be identified as a ‘‘senior campaign official’’ assuring me that Hillary had come up with the line herself. An actual authentic everyday quip, more or less...

[Clinton] began her campaign in April by hopping into a decked-out campaign van, christened Scooby, and bolting for Iowa. Pretty much everyone I talked to on her campaign made a point of mentioning that this road trip was the candidate’s idea. It was important that I knew that...

4. Hillary Clinton drove a car in 1995

Leibovich recalls how Clinton secretly drove a car during her time as First Lady:

As first lady, Clinton openly entertained fantasies of escaping her bubble and indulging in flings of anonymity. ‘‘On a recent trip to Arkansas, I had a sudden impulse to drive,’’ she wrote in a syndicated column from 1995. ‘‘I jumped behind the wheel of a car and, much to the discomfort of my Secret Service detail, drove myself around town. For several hours, I enjoyed a marvelous sensation of personal freedom.’’

5. Hillary Clinton is willing to be "dehumanized" in order to gain power

Hillary hates the press, but is willing to be "stalked" and "dehumanized" by public scrutiny in exchange for power:

At an appearance in April of last year in Portland, Ore., Clinton was asked what it was like to have lived most of her adult life under such scrutiny. She reminisced about her early days in Arkansas, back when she drove her own car and took Chelsea to ballet class. She betrayed an almost wistful longing for that time, contrasting her energy and freedom then with the exhaustions of her public life today — ‘‘the level of relentless scrutiny that now stalks not just people in politics but people in all kinds of public arenas,’’ in her phrase. ‘‘It gives you a sense of being kind of dehumanized, I guess.’’

The starkness of this language jumped out at me — "stalks" and, especially, "dehumanized," a term we associate with subjects of nefarious experiments or victims of unspeakable abuse. They betrayed an ambivalence toward the unnatural habitat that Clinton had chosen for her life and toward the onslaught that she would subject herself to as soon as she started running again.

6. Hillary Clinton is a woman

Leibovich writes that "compared with what she did in 2008, Clinton has not hesitated to emphasize the factor known euphemistically as 'the historic nature of her candidacy." In other words, unlike in 2008, Hillary isn't afraid to openly discuss her gender as a selling point.

The media keeps pushing the notion that Hillary did not emphasize gender during her failed 2008 campaign, despite the fact that it's not entirely true. It's especially strange that this would be published in the New York Times, given how the editorial board criticized Hillary in 2008 for overemphasizing gender and the "historic" nature of her campaign:

By choosing Mrs. Clinton, we are not denying Mr. Obama’s appeal or his gifts. The idea of the first African-American nominee of a major party also is exhilarating, and so is the prospect of the first woman nominee. "Firstness" is not a reason to choose. The times that false choice has been raised, more often by Mrs. Clinton, have tarnished the campaign.

7. 100 percent of Hillary Clinton's success is showing up

Hillary isn't concerned about the fact that she hasn't always been on the right side of history, especially when it comes to the issues many liberals care about, such as gay marriage, the Iraq War, and her husband's "war on crime." Simply being a member of the Democratic Party is sufficient, Clinton argues:

I mentioned to Clinton how extraordinary it must be to be a de facto standard-bearer for a party that keeps scoring landmark progressive victories. Supreme Court rulings in favor of same-sex marriage and the Affordable Care Act would seem to encourage a feel-good moment for the Democratic base. The degree to which these triumphs will accrue to Clinton is unclear, especially because she did not support same-sex marriage until 2013 and oversaw a disastrous attempt at a health care bill in her husband’s White House. But in Clinton’s retelling, it should be enough that she has been part of the fights themselves. (She has a knack for extolling her credentials in terms of simply being present: in the Situation Room during the Bin Laden raid, in 112 countries as your secretary of state, as a senator from New York on 9/11.)

Note: Hillary's presence in the Situation Room on the night of the Bin Laden raid is a matter of dispute.