charles laurence looks at the secret and sycophantic world of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign |
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Hillaryland is a place of secrecy, discipline and control, and it has become the only world that presidential election frontrunner Hillary Clinton knows. It consists of a dozen or so strategists and fixers, nearly all of them women, and it is increasingly impenetrable to outsiders.
Political professionals say she needs to operate from within a fortress if she is to make it through the multiple minefields of the White House campaign.
Hillaryland is remarkably similar to the inner-circle surrounding George Bush, the loyalty-first group led by Karl Rove which took an unlikely Texas governor all the way to the top job. "Both operations make the papal conclave look like a bunch of free talkers," Democratic strategist Chris Lehane told the New York Times. "I mean that in a positive
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| Hillaryland consists of a dozen or so strategists and fixers, nearly all of them women |
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way, because that is the type of discipline it takes to win."
But irrational fears and enmities can breed in the dark, and they could destroy Clinton if she loses touch with actual voters between now and the first primary next January.
Last week's Wall Street Journal/NBC opinion poll gave Hillary Clinton a commanding lead among the Democratic candidates with 43 per cent, ahead of Barack Obama on 22 and John Edwards trailing on 13. But there have been warning signs since last month's YouTube debate when Clinton crossed swords with Obama that Hillary can suddenly lose touch. The issue was straightforward enough: Obama thought it would be good foreign policy to sit down without preconditions with such troublemakers as Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, while Clinton warned of the dangers of being "used for propaganda purposes" and would meet only once "you know what the intentions are".
According to polls, twice as many Democrats agree with Obama as Clinton. But if Clinton was told of this, she was too peeved to  |
