The Clinton books: 'Rehash for cash' or threat to her campaign?

The presidential hopeful stars in two unflattering tomes that, at the least, are reminders of her polarizing profile.

from the June 5, 2007 edition

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Clinton's vote to authorize the war and subsequent refusal to declare that decision a mistake have frustrated the liberal base of the Democratic Party – and given rise to serious competition for her party's nomination in the form of Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who opposed the war from the start, and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who early in his presidential campaign did apologize for his own authorization vote.

If such books were a given, the Clintons may be grateful to be getting them out of the way now and not, say, at Christmas, on the eve of the nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"As far as she's concerned, it's better to get them out there early," says Linda Fowler, a political scientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. Still, she adds, "there's not much she can do. Of course, she can say that's in the past, and we're going forward, but in fact, people do use the past to make predictions about people's future behavior."

The books – and the reminders they provide of Clinton's polarizing profile – could add to concerns some Democrats have about her electability. They need only look to the 2004 race, when Vermont Gov. Howard Dean got to within weeks of the Iowa caucuses in first place in the polls only to see the floor drop out of his support over concerns he was not electable.

Whit Ayres, a Republican Party pollster, disagrees that the new books pose a threat to Clinton's campaign, because she is already so well known to the public and because there is no new information in the books that does not already fit preconceived notions of her.

"If Hillary were a stock, you would say that all the bad news in those books is already in her stock price," says Mr. Ayres. He notes that in the Hotline's latest poll, her favorable rating was 48 percent, versus 46 percent unfavorable. "That's a whole lot of people who have already made up their minds."

Analysts agree that the books force her off message and into discussions of the past, instead of making the case that she represents the change voters want

"The real question for her is whether she is able to do in the diners and coffee shops and living rooms of people in Iowa and New Hampshire what she did in New York," when she won her Senate seat in a state where she had never lived, says Democratic strategist Peter Fenn, who is not affiliated with any of the candidates.

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