Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee earlier this month. Morry Gash / AP
Meet the New Hillary
Can the Democratic frontrunner turn around her struggling campaign—or is it time to panic?
MILWAUKEE—I am here to see the New Hillary.
Hillary Clinton, the once-inevitable Democratic nominee, has lately hit some snags. She is plummeting in the polls; her campaign lacks direction. So Hillary—I’m going to call her Hillary, like it says on her signs—would like to start over. She’s rolling out a new persona: spontaneous, funny, relatable, personable. A regular person, just like the good people of Milwaukee, who have come to see her on a drizzly September weekday.
Here we are at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Home of the Panthers. Home of lots of regular people—Hillary likes to call them Everyday Americans. (Oh God, that sounds weird, doesn’t it? Someone told The New York Times it sounded like “Everyday low prices,” at Walmart. Hillary is so sorry. Hillary will stop saying that.)
Hillary is also sorry about the whole email thing, which has been frightening and confusing, hasn’t it? Hillary has now—after months of explaining it away, shrugging it off, and expressing regret—apologized for the email thing, so that everyone can move on. But we regular people, we don’t really care about the email thing, right? We are noble, practical folks, with more important things to worry about, am I right?
“I’m very worried by these scandals, like the emails,” says Katherine Kober, a 36-year-old with short blond hair and a 1-year-old son strapped to her chest in a baby carrier. “That hurts her credibility, you know? I think she should have explained herself earlier. I worry that it’s a pride thing—I think her Achilles heel could be her pride.”
We are waiting in a big room above the student union for Hillary to arrive. The event—a Women for Hillary Grassroots Organizing Meeting—was originally going to take place out in the plaza, but it looked like it might rain, so everyone has been redirected inside. The line to get through the metal detectors snakes up two flights of stairs. Outside, some protesters who didn’t get the memo are still shuffling around the empty quad—a cluster of religious kids with bloody-fetus-part placards, a College Republican handing out sneaky little flyers to attendees “welcoming” her to campus. The flyers say: “As first lady, she was a monumental figure on advancing nationalized healthcare (pioneered by that wonderful Empire known as the Soviet Union).” Ha-ha!
No one seems to agree on how Hillary is doing right now. Is everything actually fine? Is the current drama just a passing blip? Or is this one of those moments when everything teeters on the edge—when a political campaign that seemed like a sure thing begins to collapse under its own weight? Loyal Democrats, across the country, aren’t worried necessarily, but they are starting to wonder how worried they should be. (“It is an arranged marriage,” one prominent Washington Democrat who is starting to worry told me. “Her support is broad, but not deep.”) Some of them are calling on Vice President Joe Biden to run—good old Uncle Joe! In fact, one of Hillary’s big donors met with him just the other day. But come on, how does everyone think this thing is going to end? Does anyone really think Bernie Sanders is going to be the Democratic nominee?
“I like her better than a lot of other candidates—besides Bernie,” Jessica Differt, a crimson-haired 19-year-old student, tells me. “She’s definitely my number two if Bernie doesn’t win.” Differt, an aspiring comedian, is not too fazed by the emails—“I send stupid stuff all day, every day,” she says—but she feels like Hillary is too close to the big banks. Still, she would definitely take Hillary over any of the Republicans.
“Hillary is like a cool aunt, you know?” Differt says. “Like, you don’t want to tell her you’re pregnant, but you would tell her your boyfriend troubles. She’s nice, but she’s not my mom, you know?”
The room is filling up with people. There’s a student in a Trump hat—MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN—which turns out not to be totally ironic: He’s a physics major who identifies as a “conservative-leaning independent” but is sincerely interested in what Hillary has to say. The mayor of Milwaukee, Tom Barrett, a tall, white-haired 61-year-old, is mingling in the crowd, oozing confidence. “There are seasons in a campaign,” he tells me, philosophically. “In the long run, I don’t think [the emails are] going to hurt her. It’s been a distraction, but she’ll get beyond it.”
While we are still waiting for Hillary to arrive—the crowd, standing, crammed behind metal barricades, the mute, expectant stage topped by a wood lectern, “Shake It Off” playing over the speakers—the backdrop suddenly comes crashing down. A support on the right side gives way and pulls the black curtain with it, plummeting onto the stage and taking down the Wisconsin and American flags. People laugh and raise their phones to take pictures.
Within an hour, America Rising, one of several PACs dedicated to destroying Hillary, has posted the 12-second video of the curtain crash on YouTube, titled “The Clinton Campaign Is Literally Collapsing.” A few days later, it has been viewed more than 100,000 times. That’s how badly people want to see Hillary fail. At the moment, she is giving them plenty to work with.
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Hillary is here at last. She strides confidently onto the stage and hugs Martha Love, the Democratic National Committee member who gave the last of several introductions. Hillary is a fingertips hugger, not a full-body hugger: polite, careful, affectionate without being forward. “Wow,” she says into the microphone, “I am thrilled to be here!”