Standing together: Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
Posted on 01/27/2007 5:50:27 PM PST by bruinbirdman
When her father Bill ran for the presidency in 1992, Chelsea Clinton was a gawky 12-year-old with braces and a mop of crinkly hair, ill at ease in front of the cameras.
Some 15 years later, her mother Hillary has assigned her daughter a crucial role in the family's latest White House campaign as the former First Lady hopes to firm up support among women voters with a "mum strategy".
Standing together: Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
Miss Clinton, 26, who now works for a Wall Street hedge fund, has not appeared alongside her mother since the New York senator launched her presidential bid last weekend, but her impact on the campaign is already being felt.
Sen Clinton has begun repeatedly referring to herself as a mother, with the particular experience that entails, since declaring herself "in" for the presidential race last weekend. She has described her daughter and husband as her closest advisers.
It was a point she drove home yesterday when she launched her "ground war" in Iowa, the first state to hold a presidential caucus, where Sen Clinton, the Dem-o-crats' national frontrunner, is trailing both Barack Obama and John Edwards, her two main rivals.
She has also just released a new edition of It Takes a Village, her controversial 1996 book on bringing up children. "At the core of this book is my own experience as a mother and my conviction that parents are the most important influences on the lives of their children," she writes in a fresh introduction.
Sen Clinton, 59, has been working hard to shake off her reputation as a cold and calculating political operator and cultivate a more compassionate image. Her family is crucial to that strategy but brings troubling political baggage.
At the New York book launch last week for the memoirs of Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic fund-raiser who is chairman of Sen Clinton's campaign, Bill Clinton, the former president, described his excitement at his new "supporting role" in his wife's bid to return to the White House.
"I'll do whatever I'm asked to do," he told a gathering of "Clintonistas", to loud applause. "I'm very proud of my wife. So is her daughter."
But despite his enduring popularity, many Americans still associate him indelibly with his affair with Monica Lewinsky — a scandal that Sen Clinton's advisers know does her no favours with the electorate.
With his natural charm and charisma, he also tends to upstage his wife. By contrast, Chelsea Clinton, who watched quietly from the back of the room at the Four Seasons restaurant as her father enthused about her mother's prospects, is regarded by "Team Hillary" as a big weapon in her political arsenal.
They are expected to make a joint appearance soon and she will steadily assume a more prominent role as the battle for the Democratic nomination intensifies.
Miss Clinton is already a veteran of the often harsh world of presidential politics – which is probably why she has shown no interest in pursuing her parents' choice of career.
As a teenager growing up in the White House, her father's philandering brought forth a stream of media coverage, often with lurid detail of his sexual behaviour, and her mother was pilloried for her failed attempt to reform the US health system.
While her father was president, Miss Clinton was generally kept out of the glare of publicity as she attended Sidwell Friends School, an exclusive private academy in Washington. She later studied history at Stanford University and earned a master's degree in international relations at University College, Oxford.
Despite occasional appearances in the gossip columns, she has remained intensely private. While she will appear alongside her mother at selected campaign events, she is not expected to make policy statements; rather, the presence of an assured young career woman will demonstrate Sen Clinton's maternal skills.
Even here, there is potential embarrassment. Miss Clinton's boyfriend - and soon-to-be-husband, if the tabloids are to be believed - is Marc Mezvinsky, 29, a former intern in her father's White House who now works for Goldman Sachs.
His parents were also Democratic politicians and family friends of the Clintons, but Mr Mezvinsky's father Ed, a former congressman, is serving six years in jail for fraud offences he committed to recoup losses in a Nigerian scam.
Given that the Clintons were dogged by allegations of financial impropriety over the Whitewater land deal, it seems unlikely that Sen Clinton's foes will refrain from making capital of the fact that her daughter's prospective father-in-law is behind bars for fraud.
Sen Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, also faces financial and legal trouble, accused of failing to repay $107,000 (£54,600) in loans from a carnival company whose owners received pardons from Mr Clinton when he was president.
How could you stay with a guy who so blatantly throughout your marriage has screwed around.Some role model for her daughter!
Couldn't even save your daughter from the emotional abuse of living with "daddy".
ROFLMAO!!!!
I guess that would explain the family business dealings.....
Sen Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, also faces financial and legal trouble, accused of failing to repay $107,000 (£54,600) in loans from a carnival
I think Hillary scary and Bill is a perv.
Chelsea's OK. I don't get the 'ugly' that folks keep seeing.
Web is conviently dead, Cat...you must know that...
"...I thought Hill should have gone for the cute little fluffy puppy...."
That wouldn't have worked. Dogs are very perceptive creatures. They can smell out pure evil like nobody's business.
What the heck makes her (and her handlers) think that people want "Mommy" for president?
Are you sure? Wikipedia has him born in 1949, but not dead yet!
Old Webb would be proud.
P. S. I'm not talking about Webster of the dictionary fame!
Web Hubble is alive as long as there's Adobe Photoshop and people who know how to use it.
Just the denial....
Yeah, Hillary, use your daughter as a prop. Just like the cold, calculating, cynical person you are. That'll be a big hit.
There is a woman where I work that looks just like her. She is, believe me! (There is also a woman there who looks just like Tonya Harding. Now, do you believe that bad luck follows me everywhere?)
I don't see that either.
In order to come out of college and get a high paying job like Chelsea's most womem would have to put out. It must be nice to be Chelsea and use Mom and Dad to get a great job without having to earn it.
LOL!
I work with eldery, homeless, insane and MR/DD. So most folks I see look great when I'm not at work.
You are right...I am wrong...I thought he died in prison.
I stand corrected, thank you Cat!
I think Chelsea is rather attractive, now that she's had the work done to reduce her resemblance to her biological father, Webster.
And contrary to what many Freepers think, I believe that if Hillary had not sold her soul to the Devil, the features she was born with could have been molded into an attractive face. As it is her attractiveness is ruined by those death-cold eyes.
I believe she has had a little Thermage along that jawline. It's a bit too firm and smooth for a sixty-year-old. (Not that there's anything wrong with Thermage treatments.)
Wow. First MSNBC calls the democrats in the senate liberals and now this.
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