(4 of 7)
Bush campaign strategists, in fact, have sought to tone down the anti- Hillary rhetoric in recent weeks. In their own postconvention surveys, the Republicans found that a hard core of about 10% to 15% of voters strongly dislike the Arkansas Governor's wife. But the internal surveys also indicated this anti-Hillary sentiment is firm and needs no boosting, while the great majority of the public finds the assaults on her insulting, meanspirited and beside the point.
The Clinton camp, meanwhile, came to the same conclusion. A sampling taken by Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg showed that Hillary's favorability ratings shot up 8 or 9 points right after the Republican Convention. All the Hillary bashing in the Astrodome, says Clinton's top campaign strategist, James Carville, "played to a decent advantage for us. The Republican Party in Houston made a collective fool of itself in attacking Hillary. People want to hear other things in an election campaign than a distorted 1974 scholarly article."
The main reason for the backlash is obvious: by taking after Hillary the way they did, the Republicans unnecessarily angered moderates, who saw the attack as one on women in general. By going after women who work, they got at the elite Murphy Browns -- a small contingent -- but also snagged the middle- and working-class Roseannes, creating solidarity among both groups, who aren't confident enough in their new roles to take a presidential strike force with equanimity. Scratch the surface of any mother and she wonders if she is doing it right, whether she works full time, part time or not at all. A note from the teacher saying Junior is having trouble with long division can make a trial lawyer wonder if she should write briefs from the kitchen table. Ask a stay-at-home mother at a cocktail party what she does, and she looks at you as if you just asked if you could have one of her fingers as an hors d'oeuvre. She is wondering if she will ever be able to get back into the job market again, and is worried that if her children don't turn out a lot better than those of the woman doing arbitrage deals down the block, she will have wasted her life.
While the Republicans were busy painting Hillary as an overly ambitious careerist, she seemed to be consciously modifying her style. In the past few months, she has softened her image (much to the dismay of some feminists), grinning and gripping like a mayor's wife and baking cookies to show she is not a harridan. She has even learned to stand at the back of the stage and look at Bill with a convincing imitation of the Nancy Reagan gaze.
In person and off the podium, Hillary Clinton is neither a killer lawyer nor the adoring spouse of the bus tours. Riding in the back seat of a car during a New York campaign swing, she wolfs down popcorn while worrying about whether < Chelsea got her booster shots. She jokes about only making the teams for sports like volleyball and softball -- and laments that she didn't have the foresight to concentrate on profession-enhancing pastimes like tennis and golf. While Bill can go for long stretches of time on the road, she says she has to head back frequently to Little Rock to "make a cup of tea, hang out with Chelsea, take an afternoon nap. If I don't get back there, I don't feel grounded."