Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton gives an interview.
TIME: Senator Clinton, having listened to you a lot over these last couple of weeks I really was struck by the different tone and different message of your speech last night, from the very first one. I was wondering what is the message that you think you got from voters in Iowa and New Hampshire? What was it that they weren't hearing from you before and you think they are hearing from you now?
CLINTON: Well, I was talking specifically about New Hampshire, of course, because in that very concentrated four-day period I had a chance to speak to I don't know how many thousands of voters and answer hundreds of questions. And I felt as the hours were going by that I was able to let people know why I do what I do. That sounds, perhaps, overly simplistic. I have always been committed to public service, long before I was ever in public office. It is just who I am. It is what I care about. I care deeply about this country and I want to make sure it does what it can to help people and that is what I have been determined to do as well. But I think it is fair that a lot of people may not have known what motivated me or what I get up every day thinking about and as we had this intense period in New Hampshire, it just put everything in such sharp focus that I believed I was able better to break through and connect with people on a very personal level.
Do you think that it was that you weren't sort of drawing clearly enough the connection and the link between your resume and your record and what that means for them?
I think it was a little of that, Karen, but I think it was also that it is important in today's very concentrated media environment where most people will obviously never meet you personally, but get to know you through that lens — to do more to convey what I believe I have always conveyed personally, in my relationships with people and the work that I have done.
I started out way behind, and pretty much was written off many times in my New York Senate race. But I had the time and the opportunity to get to meet enough people one-on-one, that I really felt that connection. It sounds, perhaps, obvious to say, but in a presidential campaign where you are trying to speak to the whole country as well as to an individual state, more of what I have to do has to be through all of you. I have always been somebody who was other-directed and pretty much just decided that people would judge me by what I did.
I have never thought that what I said was anywhere near as important as what I did. I think there is a distinct difference between talk and action and maybe it is because I have been in these trenches for a long time and the people I value are the doers. When I got to the Senate I said I was a workhorse, not a showhorse, and set out to prove it. So what I have been realizing in the last days and weeks is that I have got to do some of this work myself. Lots of people with whom I have worked or been friends for a lifetime flooded into Iowa and New Hampshire to talk about me, and I am not really good about talking about me — so that was kind of a welcome addition. But I have to carry some of that responsibly myself and the people of New Hampshire really freed me up to do that.
You said earlier today that you really felt the debate was a turning point. Your performance in the debate had gotten a lot of commentary in the media. It seems like the voters saw it a lot differently than the pundits did. I certainly know, talking to a lot of voters in New Hampshire as well. I talked to one woman who said she was planning to vote for Obama until she saw that debate and what she was most struck by was that you stood your ground.
Yeah, you know, Karen, look, you have followed me a long time and I have known you over the years, and I am sure you understand I sometimes think that the media doesn't really follow what people are thinking and doing to the extent what I would like... on two levels. Number one: politics for me is a means to an end. It is not an end in itself. And obviously, if you are on the campaign trail and you are covering the candidates 24-7, it kind of becomes an end in itself. And I am always reminding me and my staff that it isn't and that we've got to keep focused and our eyes on what matters — and that is whether someone is going to be better off if we go through all of this at the end of it all.
And the other is that it just has been my experience, going back many, many years, that voters hear things and see things differently. And that debate, I knew as soon as it was over and I was walking off the stage, one of the cameraman grabbed my hand and said, "That was great." And then from that moment on, everywhere I went people were telling me that they really got what I was doing and they were glad I wasn't the only one that was on the hot spot for a change.
I realized that if you see it with your own eyes, instead of having it interpreted for you — and obviously that debate in New Hampshire was a big deal among the voters there — it does have a reality of its own. Now, for me, I have got to really do the best I can to continue doing what I am most comfortable and committed to doing, which is that on-on-one message of advocacy and caring about the people that I want to represent. Because that is why I do it. If that wasn't part of it for me, I would spend my time some other way, but I also do have to get better at explaining myself and answering questions instead of just assuming that what I do speaks louder than words and people will eventually figure it out.