Posted on 01/28/2007 2:56:39 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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".
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 arsen-al.
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.
"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."
The 419ers got him? Now that is funny.
I don't think most Americans hate HRC; I just think most Americans are bored by her, and are unimpressed with her accomplishments.
Similarly, get ready for more cries of "racist!" when you merely point out that Barak Obama hasn't achieved anything that makes him fit to be president.
Chelsea is a whole lot better looking now than when she was in the White House :/
Mommy married a crook, mommy is a crook, so it's natural Chelsea would hook up with the son of a crook.
Chelsea's working for a hedge fund? The symmetry is perfect, lol!
"I'm very proud of my wife. So is her daughter."
A strange thing to say . He should have said "our daughter".
That's scary. GMTA!
Rofl!
By being more of a cold and calculating political operator. My God, this woman would evicerate the rotting corpse of a dog and suck its guts out with a straw if she thought it would get her a vote, she is just the ultimate vote whore. There are vote whores then there is the all time champion, Hellary Rodham. The freggin` nonsense from this lunatic is going to be non-stop every single day until the election.
"Scrape the bottom, vote for Rodham!"
Well, that "influence seems to have taken root. Chelsea is already surrounding herself with criminals.
(Sure is butt ugly too)
The Clinton family are boring; but they are the poster children in what not to elect in a President.
Great minds??? GM
Ever notice Chelsea looks nothing like Bill?
You've Come a Long Way, Maybe
Will Women Sweep Hillary Into the White House?
By Linda Hirshman
Sunday, January 28, 2007; Page B01
Hillary Rodham Clinton sure got it right when she announced her candidacy for president while sitting on her living room couch. Her success may very well turn on the decisions of millions of women sitting on their living room couches.
Clinton advisers James Carville and Mark Penn have said they're counting on a women's vote (the "X factor") to catapult their client into the White House. They're obviously hoping that a female candidate will get much more support from women and are banking on the "gender gap," the idea, trumpeted by the media and women's organizations, that women believe in liberal policies and will therefore, as rational political actors, support the Democratic Party.
But I have news for Messrs. Carville and Penn: All the gender gap talk notwithstanding, there's no guarantee that Clinton would receive enough votes from women to be elected. I've studied women and women's politics for 20 years, and if there's one thing I know, it's that, except for possibly once in 1996, female voters have not by themselves put anyone in the White House.
If Clinton is going to attract the women she needs, she's probably going to have to do something more than simply have a pair of X chromosomes herself. And much as it pains a feminist like me to say it, a lot of her campaign will have to involve putting her on the couch and analyzing her character and motivation. Again. ..........................
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601626.html
A few days ago, I saw a morph well done of Chelsea and Hubble. It was scary.
Wow, a hand-me-down pantsuit!
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