Hillary Clinton Still Hard to Define Despite Her Many Roles

If Barack Obama seemed to come out of nowhere, Clinton’s the candidate who seemed to come out of everywhere.

When she was about 14, Hillary Clinton says she wrote to NASA volunteering for astronaut training.

NASA’s reply was simple and definitive: No girls.

“It was the first time I had hit an obstacle I couldn’t overcome with hard work and determination, and I was outraged,” she would write in her book, Living History.

More than a half-century later, and after much hard work, much determination, and most of all, many, many obstacles — some undeniably of her own making — Clinton is no closer to actual space travel. She may have to settle for becoming the first female leader of the free world.

Hillary’s Reinvented Role

Her journey – more than three decades in the public eye, and counting – has been unlike any seen in American politics: a story of great promise, excruciating setbacks, bitter scandal, stunning comebacks, and especially reinvention – of her own life, and as a result, of the role of women in government. It’s one that has fascinated not just her own country, but the world.

Think about it: Is any woman more recognizable on a global scale than Hillary Clinton? If Barack Obama was the presidential candidate who seemed to come out of nowhere, Clinton’s one who seemed to come out of everywhere.

Americans first knew her as a governor’s wife and working mother in Arkansas, then as the nation’s first lady – famously claiming an office in the West Wing of the White House, not the East, as half of husband Bill Clinton’s “Buy one, get one free” bargain.

Touched by scandal from Whitewater to Monica Lewinsky – but also carving out her own political identity – she emerged to become a hard-working senator, the first first lady to gain elected office. We knew her as the presidential candidate who suffered a stinging defeat to Obama in 2008, but proudly claimed “18 million cracks” in the glass ceiling.

Then she reinvented herself again, becoming Obama’s secretary of state, traveling almost a million miles to 112 countries. Finally, after much speculation, she announced her second run for the presidency.

We knew her well by then.

Or not.

From Lady Macbeth to the Most Qualified Presidential Candidate Ever

Who WAS Hillary Clinton, and why, if we’d been watching her for so long, did we feel like we didn’t know her?

At least, that’s the persistent narrative. Perhaps it’s a question of layers. She’s had so many different roles, of course we’ve seen different facets of her. But there’s also a sense of impenetrability, exacerbated by her penchant for secrecy – a characteristic that has led to her greatest vulnerability in this election: the email scandal over her use of a private server.

For the last 14 years, and 20 overall, Americans polled by Gallup have named Clinton their most admired woman in the world. But consider some other titles attached to her over the years: Lady Macbeth. Washington insider. Robotic. Wildly ambitious. Congenital liar. (Or Donald Trump’s current favorite, “Crooked Hillary.”) But also: Feminist heroine. Glass-ceiling breaker. The most prepared in the room. The most qualified presidential candidate ever. Loyal friend. Witty companion. Mom. Grandma.

“It’s an amazing life,” says biographer Carl Bernstein, who wrote a 600-page book on her and says he still struggles to define her. “You could not make any of this stuff up.”

There have been polarising figures in politics before, but it’s hard to imagine any have been called as many things – wildly divergent things – as she. Does everyone simply have their own version of Hillary Clinton?

A Woman’s Ambition

Saturday Night Live has been turning out versions for a good 25 years. Each actress spoofing Clinton – there have been nine, including Miley Cyrus rapping in a bandeau – has put her spin on the part. But there’s been one constant: ambition, pure and unadulterated.

Comedy aside, the ambition tag has dogged Clinton, 68, throughout her career, as if it were a bad quality rather than a necessity in high-stakes politics. The satirical website The Onion captured the irony in a 2006 headline: “Hillary Clinton Is Too Ambitious To Be The First Female President.”

If a guy is described as ambitious, it’s a noble attribute – he wants to put himself ahead. But if a woman is ambitious, it’s not an attribute, it’s a negative, a pejorative. It’s not proper somehow.

Melanne Verveer, Clinton’s Chief of Staff

We still don’t like a woman who is showing ambition, especially for that level of a job. It’s: ‘I’d like her if she weren’t so damned ambitious. How come she wants all that power?

Patricia Schroeder, Former Politician

Disconnect Between Public and Private Hillary

Clinton’s image as a champion for women has been complicated by her, well, complicated marriage – she’s been an object of both sympathy and blame for staying with her husband post-Monica Lewinsky.

But memories of her speech at UN Women’s Conference in Beijing endure.

Those who’ve watched her up close say she’s both natural and an excellent communicator one on one. Friends always say she’s relaxed, funny, witty, a great companion.

And not just her friends. Talk to classmates from Wellesley, even those who only knew her from afar, and they say they can’t understand the disconnect between public and private Hillary.

Who is she really? There’s that question again.

Is it a fair one? One we’d ask about other candidates?

Schroeder thinks not. “I say to people, ‘What more do you want to know?’” the former congresswoman says. “We can see her voting record. We know what colours she likes. She speaks about her mother. She’s a Methodist. How many politicians do we even know that much about? Do they want some kind of a confession?”

Others note that Clinton has naturally become very guarded, given that she’s been judged, relentlessly and often unfairly, “on a huge stage, for all of her life,” in Bernstein’s words. Besides, “too many people are interested in looking for information that reinforces their already held prejudices and beliefs,” he says.

Herron, Clinton’s college classmate, feels that we don’t subject male candidates to the same scrutiny, always looking for another layer.

What do we know about Mitt Romney? What do we know about ANYBODY? We expect her to let her hair down, to talk about her failures and self-doubt or something. You know what, she’s not like that! Let her be who she is.  

Herron

(This article has been edited for length and published in an arrangement with AP.)