Days of Their Lives

As we all know, the story began many years ago, when Wellesley’s star feminist met the altogether too plausible Arkansas charmer on the Yale Law School campus, and the two joined their young hearts and their rampant ambitions in an audacious plan to win and share power, of a kind never concocted before. The series took off, and won a huge following, as one intriguing development followed the next. Bill became Arkansas attorney general, and Hillary helped him. Bill became governor, and Hillary helped him. Bill ran for president, and Hillary helped him, now more than ever. Bill became president, and the ratings took off, ensnaring a new, international, audience. Bill retired from office, after many adventures, having beaten back efforts to eject him for perjury. As this was happening, in an attempt to sustain the plot, Hillary ran for the Senate, won, and began running for president, opening a whole new story line, plus a whole new vein of historical interest: Sons have succeeded fathers as president; wives have followed husbands (usually dead ones) into the House or the Senate; brothers have tried to follow brothers into the White House, and failed in the effort; but never before has a former first lady tried to be elected president, and, in the process, make her husband the very first First Man.

And as the plot now heats up, it makes us look anew at the two major characters, and their complex bargain. This is crunch time for the Great Clinton Gamble, the one Hillary took in her deal with Bill: to serve his career first to gain power later, or more power sooner, than she might have won for herself. She has to put up, to prove the claim her fans have been making since the couple emerged: that she is the one who ought to be president, a woman of genius and destiny. And he, for this, and for all of the grief he has caused her, now has to pay up, big time.

In a sense, Hillary has always been the real star of the series. A feminist favorite at high tide of the feminist movement, Hillary had been told all her life by her friends and relations that she had a spectacular and limitless future, and, if she wanted, could Go All The Way. It was a shock and a letdown to some of these mentors when the place that she chose to go first was Arkansas, a place, so it seemed, at the far end of nowhere, in order to follow a man. Even a man with a political future seemed a comedown compared with their fantasies. “I worked hard as a woman to help her get the opportunities she was entitled to,” one such woman said sadly, as she helped Hillary pack for her trek into exile. “I thought she was throwing those opportunities away.”

Actually, she was on her way not to the kitchen, but to a bargain unique in American politics: She would support and advance Bill while he ran for office, while any power he won would be shared. A genial rogue, and a great favorite with some female viewers, Bill would break his marriage vows with a large cast of women, which made for some interesting plotlines and crises, but he would always keep faith with this part of their contract. Hillary had large policy roles as first lady of Arkansas. In 1990, they thought of having her run to succeed him as governor. Bill ran for president in 1992 on an openly two-for-one ticket. And once he was elected, Bill was more than true to his word.

But along the way, the division of labor had not been quite equal, and (no surprise to most female viewers) she had borne the brunt. His job was to run, be elected, and make himself famous; all of the fun stuff. Hers was to do everything else: to order their lives, make most of their money, and always to pick up after Bill. “By the mid-1980s . . . there had been several adjustments in the partnership, most of them made by Hillary,” wrote David Maraniss of the Washington Post. “Year by year in their joint political enterprise, she had taken on more tasks–some that her husband had asked her to do, some that she felt obliged to perform because it was clear to her that he did not want to do them or was not good at them. . . . She was her husband’s public relations troubleshooter and legal problem-solver. She provided a full range of formal and informal services. As the public relations consultant, she would devote hours to courting John Robert Starr, the managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat, in an occasionally effective effort to persuade him to go easier on her husband. As the lawyer, she would represent Clinton’s interests, helping to resolve some of the most politically sensitive issues in Arkansas,” including a dispute over a power plant in Mississippi and unresolved issues from the epic desegregation of the Little Rock public school system 30 years earlier.

Female viewers of The Clintons, especially, could share the concerns of the leading lady. “Some people,” Maraniss wrote, “sensed a growing resentment in Hillary that she had to take on so many private duties in the partnership while at the same time she was being asked, unfairly, she thought, to sacrifice material things.” Thus we all understood when Bill was elected, and she talked about becoming his chief of staff or a cabinet member. “There was some fear that she was going to get gypped out of something she had paid a real price for,” an aide to the president said. But the fear was unfounded: She got what she paid for. And then the real problems began.

Like any successful duo, Hillary and Bill’s complementary skills–her will and discipline, his political talents–could compensate for their individual deficits, and create one effective political animal. The downside was that their opposite deficits–his lack of discipline, her tin ear for politics–constantly threatened to scuttle the enterprise, creating an unending cycle of danger and rescue and blame. In 1980, Bill lost his first race for reelection as governor, partly because Hillary irritated so many people by looking and acting like a campus insurgent, with baggy dresses, thick glasses, and brown frizzy hair. Faced with the menace of early retirement, she began to turn blonder, took off her glasses, smartened her wardrobe, and became–well, not beautiful, but often quite pretty, especially in the later stages of the first run for president, when she sported soft little dresses and a well-coiffed blonde flip. Bill was returned to office, and resumed his climb upward. When the series had its national premiere in January 1992, on Super Bowl Sunday, Hillary was sporting blonde bangs and an Alice-in-Wonderland hair band, defending Bill against charges of fooling around with a lounge singer named Gennifer, who had held a press conference to detail his adultery, and who looked and dressed, with dark roots and big shoulders, as if she had wandered over from a neighboring Dynasty set.

The nation was mesmerized. Bill won, and they swept into office as the first First Couple ever elected, an exciting new concept in joint political leadership. As a reward, she was given early in 1993 the task of reshaping the whole health care system, which she mishandled in such a spectacular manner that one year later the Republicans won control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. This time, it was Bill to the rescue, slowly triangulating himself up out of irrelevance, while Hillary retreated from public exposure and reverted to her time-tested role as backstage adviser. In 1996, he won reelection, and the balance of power tipped back in his favor. And then, in the mother of all public sex scandals, he tipped it back over again.

One of the most appealing aspects of The Clintons was the way that the problems that roiled the country during the eight years of their joint term grew out of their private lives. Bill gave Hillary health care reform in return for her having helped him weather adultery charges, but was unwilling to check her when she handled it badly, and so he and his party lost Congress and were on the defensive for most of his tenure. With the crisis that was the dramatic high point of the series–the impeachment debate near the end of the couple’s last term in office–the show took a stunning flight into uncharted territory, making its two leading characters go against type. Elected in part as the country’s first feminist president, whose respect for women surpassed all understanding, Bill was accused of being (a) a groper, (b) a rapist, (c) a lecherous boss who cornered state employees in hotel rooms, and (d) an adulterous cad who had carried on with an intern barely older than his daughter in the Oval Office (or in a pantry close to it), on Easter Sunday, after having first gone to church with his wife.

In the famous 1960s soap opera Camelot, the heroine, Jackie (the most deeply loved character ever to appear in a show of this nature), was said to have told her wandering spouse (the ferociously attractive but ill-fated Jack) that if she were ever embarrassed in public she would leave him, taking his children. Other women in series like these–Lee Hart, for instance, in the TV movie Monkey Business–had also suffered in silence. But with Hillary, a defiant and outspoken feminist who had sworn not to stand by her man like some helpless and put-upon housewife, the scriptwriters took a step of stunning audacity: They sent her out to campaign. With Bill in disgrace (or at least in recovery), she stepped into the void created by his absence, and went coast to coast campaigning for Democrats, rallying them against the assault on Bill by his enemies, the “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

What ensued was an episode like none other in history. The right said the campaign was all about perjury; the left said it was all about privacy; but to viewers at home, it was all about Hillary: how she could stand it, what she was feeling, and how she could do what she did. It was a mystery, but all could agree that only she could have done what it was she was doing: giving her demoralized party someone to root for; and neither forgiving nor blaming her husband, but shifting her rage to his foes. It was the campaign-as-a-bad-country-song syndrome, and onlookers were mesmerized. Viewership soared. In the end, the Republicans lost seats in both houses, defying expectations and history, and giving rise to a myth: that Hillary Clinton was a brilliant campaigner of large and hitherto unappreciated political talents, who could one day win the big prize on her own. As the good husband, Bill Clinton had given her the health care issue, and she had lost Congress, and imperiled their future. As the duplicitous miscreant, Bill had imperiled himself, and given his wronged wife a springboard to a startling new future. Joan Crawford could hardly have pulled it off better. Hillary had emerged as a star.

The 1998-2000 span of The Clintons was the emotional high point of the show, and of Hillary Clinton herself. The idea that she was both a star and a genius was a product of the 1998 midterm elections, when she rose from the ashes and hit the trail with a vengeance, the Pasionaria of the impeachment ordeal, the Woman Wronged, who–without mentioning either the wrong or the wrongdoer–was asking her party to stand by her man. As a bit of theater, it was a psychological masterstroke: If you were for Bill, you could back him by following Hillary and voting against the Republican Congress; if you were enraged at Bill and wanted to teach him a lesson, you could slap him around by heeding her call and voting for Democrats, in support of the woman he had wronged. But you voted for Democrats however you felt about Bill.

Hillary’s run for the Senate two years later was the same, only more so: The brave little woman was trying to find a new life. Again, people who liked and disliked Bill could both vote for Hillary. She was carrying on Bill’s name and career while moving beyond him, declaring her independence while extending his name and his legacy. She had gone beyond being Bill’s wife and become instead “Hillary!” a dramatic phenomenon that defied definition. Her bewildered opponent could not match this drama. And of course, she won.

It was only when she started running for president that it began falling apart. The Clintons had been running a very long time, and even some erstwhile fans were fatigued. Eight years had gone by since impeachment, and six years since Bill had left office; they now lived separate lives. In a strange way they had managed to trade situations: He had a symbolic role, she had a real one; she had real power, he had its memory; he was a show horse, trying to find ways to fill empty hours; she was a workhorse, grinding away at her job. Their schedules, their interests, their circles were different. They were seldom at the same place at the same time in their big houses. As the marriage lost traction, so did the story and the fascination with it: People once intrigued by the strapping young president and the trim blonde with long hair lost interest in the haggard man with white hair, and the hard-looking woman who seemed to fill out her pant suits a little too amply. As the scandals grew dim, so did her celebrity aura: She was no longer the controversial co-president, the would-be Evita, the long-suffering spouse betrayed for the dubious charms of the thong-baring bimbo. She was no longer Nora leaving the Doll’s House to embrace a new destiny. She was now one of a hundred United States senators, industrious, but not all that outstanding–prosaic, pedantic, and dull.

And so, her performance is creating a problem for the show. Away from the old script, her appeal flagging, she has had problems finding a role. Thus far, her efforts have been inconclusive: Her jokes fall flat, and her accents are grating; when she tries to inspire, she is unconvincing; when she goes on the offensive, her voice can rise to an earsplitting shriek. Her charm offensives have not been too charming, and polls suggest that the more people see her, the higher her negatives rise. Things can still change, but in the year or so leading up to the very long battle, she has often run behind leading Republicans in head-to-head matchups; she is being overshadowed by a younger man, Barack Obama, whose own story is more compelling than hers. The once thrilling drama of the first woman president has been wholly eclipsed by the still larger drama of the first viable black candidate. She is proving a harder sell than she or Bill ever imagined. And thus, as her road to power appears narrower and steeper, the pressure on Bill to save her has increased.

And so poor old Bill has been put back into harness, churning up mountains of cash. His role in a general election would be problematic–since 1998, most of the candidates he campaigned for have failed to win office–but among the Democratic primary flock, his touch remains golden, especially in raking in dough. This is not the usual scene of the spouse merely trying to back up the partner. The Clintons left the White House in 2001 with the IOUs piling up on Bill’s half of the desk: He owes Hillary for his continuation in office, and for the entire year of 1998: for the Today Show interview in January and the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” for the stiff upper lip in the drip-by-drip process, for the fess-up in August, and the walk across the White House lawn en route to the frigid Martha’s Vineyard vacation; for the armchair psychiatrists and the gossip and giggles; for her stoic campaign in the congressional midterms; for the stand on the lawn in front of the White House on the dark day that he was impeached. Hence the ferocity with which he is working the phones and the Rolodex. Hence, too, the unprecedented five-minute video he has released extolling her presidential qualities. Friends say he is working harder than ever. They say he is even on time.

How will the writers survive this last challenge? Can the couple bring it off once again? If they can’t, it won’t be the first time a show failed when main characters tried to spin off into separate series, losing much of the magic that made the act compelling. From the start, the thing that made The Clintons work was the unlikely union of opposites, held together in an attraction-revulsion dynamic, with the whole adding up to more than the sum of its parts. As a sum, they are, and remain, an incredible story. As parts, however, they are merely stock players: an aging roué, who is almost too facile, and a grimly ambitious feminist lawyer, with a tough but conventional mind. In 1992, they seemed fresh and exciting; now they are part of the system and the problem; they were young; now they’re not far from the age that the elder George Bush was when they ran against him. And if her job was tough, Bill’s is still tougher: It is easier to discipline a huge and unruly political talent than to try to breathe talent into a humorless disciplinarian.

In the complex calculation of Clintonian balance, his scandals gave her the boost to get into the Senate, but may hurt her now with a national audience. The base may adore him, but he has devalued his stock with a broader electorate. Bill Clinton back in the White House, where he would rewrite the rules for First Spouses, would unsettle more than a few people. Would he be like Eleanor, and busy himself with causes? Like Bess Truman, and stay out of Washington? Go the Jackie route, and do over the White House? Wear stunning outfits at cultural evenings? Go riding to hounds?

And so the last act of this unfolding drama is revealing some interesting things. Hillary’s fans have wondered for years where she would be on her own without him, free to fulfill what they saw as her limitless destiny, unfettered by scandal, undistracted by coping with bimbo eruptions, unencumbered by Bill and his escapades. And now we know.

Did she need Bill, after all, to be noticed? The answer is yes. She needed him to give her access to power, to make her a household word in the state house and White House; she needed him to make her a national figure, and then she needed his scandals to make her a star. Democrats want their narratives to be like movies on Lifetime: They found Madeleine Albright an inspiring figure less because she was the first female secretary of state than because she ended up with a much bigger job than the husband who left her years earlier. Hillary’s rise had the same heart-warming essence, and played well to much the same audience. There was never a Lifetime movie quite like the 1998-2001 saga of Hillary!, the woman wronged who saved both her husband and party, who glowed on the cover of Vogue in Cartier jewels and in burgundy velvet; who lived it up on both coasts as a Miramax princess; and then, as the spunky survivor, went to start life all over in a new state of mind.

In the moment, she was a star and a princess, and a political juggernaut, but the moment was fleeting, and passed. Midnight came, the coach turned back into a pumpkin, and the princess turned into not quite a scullery maid, but surely no rock star, and merely a commonplace pol. Whether this pol will achieve her lifelong ambition is a whole other story, and one that is yet to be seen. Writers are working on three different endings: In the first, she loses and goes back to the Senate, where she makes peace with her limits and destiny; in the second, she loses, makes Bill’s life hell, and rages on at him and the world for the rest of eternity; in the third, she wins, Bill pulls her over the finish line, and they go back to the White House for four or eight years of the same old dynamic, but this time with her owing him. However it ends, it will be quite a story. It will be must-see TV.

Noemie Emery, a WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor, is author, most recently, of Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.