Letting Hillary Be Hillary

That shell cracked a bit in New Hampshire, and Clinton now believes it has to stay cracked. "What I realized is that the reason I do this, why I get up every day, why I believe in our country and the importance of leadership, was not getting across the way that I wanted it to," Clinton told NEWSWEEK about Iowa. She continued: "I get so focused on what I want to do as president that I get a little wonky, I get a little out there, with details, with five-point plans for this and 10-point plans for that, and I think that what I'm proposing really is both achievable and important, but it's not what gets me up, so why should it get voters excited? It sounds almost overly simplistic, but I had enough time in the Senate race for people to see me as a human being, they could see me in all of my dimensions, and they could draw their own conclusions. They could discover that I really mean what I say, that I come from a family and a faith tradition where I do think it's about what you do and not what you say, and they could put all that together. But in the presidential campaign I think I sort of pocketed too much of that. I thought, well, I've been in the public eye for so long now, and as a senator I first defied expectations to get elected and immediately went to work with Republicans, I did a lot to try to solve the problems we faced, so, obviously, people will [infer] that I'm doing it because I really care about the outcomes. I don't think that was a smart assumption for me to make, or for my campaign to make, very honestly."

This is not the year for making any assumptions. The decisions facing many Democrats can be found in the Berkeley, Calif., home of Echaveste and her husband, Christopher Edley, who met as Clinton White House staffers. Edley, a former member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission who chaired Bill Clinton's "mend it, don't end it" affirmative-action review, is supporting Obama. In any other year, Edley says, he would have been "thrilled" to back the nation's first viable female candidate for president. But this is not just any year. "Without diminishing the importance of electing a woman," Edley says, "I think electing an African-American would be even more extraordinary." And until now, no matter who emerged as the nominee, both Echaveste and Edley were savoring what he called a "season of hope."

That season has already been cut short. In a debate on the Saturday night between the voting in Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton was asked why more people seemed to like Obama than they did her. Her response was charmingly ironic: "Well, that hurts my feelings." Sitting a few feet away, fresh from his big win in Iowa, Obama made a crack that, if intended as a joke, failed badly: "You're likable enough, Hillary"—a moment many women found condescending and off-putting. He has also suggested that Clinton's years as First Lady do not count as experience, saying that she was not exactly the Treasury secretary. "There is a gender-related stereotype that worries me," says Edley. "I've cringed at the dismissive tone people have taken towards Hillary's service as First Lady. Dismissing the substantial informal role that she played—which everyone in the policy and political apparatus felt on occasion—mostly reflects ignorance of the behind-the-scenes details. But I worry that the dismissiveness also reflects, or feeds, stereotypes about the role of women. Then, in turn, [Clinton] is in a box because a full defense and explanation of her role could be misread either as self-aggrandizing or 'I'm-no-cookie-baker' redux."

On the morning after Iowa, Clinton was working on about an hour's sleep. On a bus heading to her first New Hampshire event, a staffer said, "This is a rally; you need to give them a rah-rah speech, leave them pumped up." Then: "We don't think you should take questions."

Clinton, who had seemed to be paying only half-attention, looked up. "Huh?" she said.

"We don't think you should take questions."