Rodham

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  About 75 percent of attendees were female, which was standard for me: a smattering of little girls in tutus and glittery shirts (the previous day, in Waterloo, a six-year-old had been wearing a blue pantsuit, making me wish the one I was wearing was also blue instead of green); teenagers, who were generally the least emotive demographic, but you never knew; poised twenty- and thirtysomethings; my jaded but nevertheless hopeful peers, with whom of course I felt a particular affinity; and women twenty or thirty years my senior, the officially old ones who often were the most unabashedly thrilled I was running. Because this was Iowa, the vast majority of the audience was white.

  I finished by encouraging everyone to register to vote if they weren’t registered, to register others if they were, to caucus for me when the time came, and to remember that every donation helped, no matter the size. Even before the applause ended, the speakers swelled with an upbeat pop song by a young female artist.

  As my traveling chief of staff, Theresa, my body woman, Kenya, and my security agent, Darryl, led me down the stage steps toward the rope line, I gave the event a B, maybe a B-plus considering the charms of the cheering woman. The rope line was, as usual, not rope but waist-high steel barriers around and between which members of the traveling press corps, including cameramen and sound guys, were inserting themselves among the Iowans. (Increasingly, reporters were women, but camera and sound people still were almost always men.) Just before I leaned over the barrier to shake the hand of an ancient-looking woman in a wheelchair, Theresa murmured into my ear, “Mary Witberg. She’s a hundred and two.”

  “Thank you so much for coming,” I said loudly as I extended my arm. “I’m thrilled you’re here.”

  In a warbly voice I had to strain to hear, Mary Witberg said, “I was six years old when Congress gave women the right to vote. I’ve been waiting for you ever since.”

  I could feel Darryl, who was behind me, grab the waist of my pants because I was bending so far forward. I ignored this indignity—certainly not the only one of the day—and I said to Mary Witberg, “Well, you’ve been very patient. I can always remember when the Nineteenth Amendment passed because it’s the same day my mother was born.”

  Seriously, quaveringly, Mary Witberg said, “I would like for you to be elected.”

  “I would, too,” I said. “Very much. Thanks again for coming.”

  Next was another woman who looked to be a comparably youthful eighty-something. My mother, who had died in 2011 and whom I thought of every day, would have been between the ages of these two women—she’d have been ninety-five. The octogenarian asked, “How long will you be in Cedar Rapids?”

  “I head down to Iowa City right after this,” I said. “I’m on a four-day, twenty-county tour of the state, which is such a wonderful opportunity to see all different places.”

  The octogenarian said, “Why, twenty counties in four days hardly gives you time to piddle around anywhere.”

  I laughed. “I know, but I promise I’ll come back. Thank you for helping us get to Election Day together.”

  A fifty-something woman wanted to know what my plan was for addressing the opioid epidemic, and a forty-something woman wanted to know what my position was on the Keystone XL pipeline, and a twelve-year-old girl told me she was raising money for Ethiopian orphans with AIDS. The next person was the woman who’d been holding the cancer sign, who blurted out, “Hillary, I love you!” Her daughters stood behind her, and the older one looked mortified.

  Because it always felt disingenuous to reply “I love you, too,” I instead smiled extra warmly and said, “Thank you very much for your support. I’m honored that you came today.” Though I’d never had much luck convincing the media of it, I usually liked other human beings and they usually liked me. I liked their specificity, their often unfashionable clothes, their accents and enthusiasms and the things they cared about enough to seek me out and tell me about, and I liked their belief that I could help them in a measurable way. I wanted—I had always wanted this—for their belief to be accurate.

  The woman exclaimed, “You’re so much prettier than you look in pictures! Your eyes are so blue.”

  This observation about my appearance occurred daily, sometimes hourly, and I accepted it in the spirit in which I believed it was intended. “Thank you,” I said. “I noticed your sign. How are you feeling?”

  “Oh my God, Hillary, if a Republican is elected, I’m screwed because all they want to do is take away Obamacare.”

  “You have health insurance?” I said, and she nodded.

  “But I used up all my sick days when I had surgery, and I haven’t even started chemo yet. Hillary, I had to have a double mastectomy.” So it was breast cancer; I hadn’t felt like it was appropriate to ask.

  “I’m sorry you’re going through this,” I said.

  “I’m a single mom, but I’m a strong person like you. My sister helps us some, but she lives in Dubuque.”

  “Do you live in Cedar Rapids?” I asked. When she nodded, I said, “Have you connected with local support services? The American Cancer Society can often provide referrals.” I gestured to the right. “This is one of my team members, Kenya. I want you to give your name and contact information to her.”

  “Hillary, you have to win!” the woman said. “I mean, these are my two daughters, so for being a role model, too.”

  “I’m trying my hardest.” I smiled. “Thank you for all your enthusiasm today.” Before I moved on to the next person, I turned and murmured to Theresa, “Bring her backstage.”

  1993

  I had thought that I’d like being a senator; in fact, I loved it. The first speech I ever gave on the Senate floor was about fair housing, and the first bill I ever co-sponsored was the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1993, and I loved being able to tangibly and directly take on the problems I had spent my adult life thinking about. I loved learning about topics that were less familiar, about foreign relations and energy and appropriations, and choosing where to focus my attention. I loved analyzing policy, talking to my staff and colleagues and experts in the field—it turned out experts were not only willing but in most cases seemed pleased to be sought out by a senator—and I loved reading briefing books in preparation for committee meetings and hearings, and I loved attending committee meetings and hearings. Most of my colleagues were bright and interesting, and some were funny and charming—even the Republicans. There was a notoriously racist and sexist seventy-eight-year-old senator from South Carolina who once said to me, in the senators-only elevator, “I heard you were a women’s rights firebrand, but nobody told me how cute you are,” and then he winked, and, though I feared I was single-handedly undermining feminism, I henceforth saw him as an endearing grandfather. I loved the camaraderie of the weekly caucus lunches, where Democratic senators gathered to listen to our leadership and eat from a buffet of chicken and salad and red Jell-O, and I also loved the bipartisan female senators’ dinners Barbara Mikulski initiated early in ’93. These dinners usually happened in a modest room in the Capitol, and we discussed policy there, too, but sometimes we discussed things like the male-only pool where our Senate colleagues swam nude (there was no female-only pool) or how many of us had, while presiding over the Senate chambers, received the same anonymous note, delivered by a page, telling us to cover our cleavage.

  I usually, unless they were confrontational or unpleasantly kooky, loved meeting the Illinoisans who’d stop by my office in the Hart Senate Office Building, the families and Girl Scout troops and retirees. I enjoyed returning to Chicago on weekends or when Senate was out of session and alternating between inhabiting my former life—seeing my parents or Maureen and her daughter, Meredith, eating at my favorite restaurants—and traveling around the state for town halls and to walk in parades and shake hands at supermarkets. I loved finding myself in places I’d never have otherwise visited, mingling with people I otherwise wouldn�
�t have met. Although I hadn’t wanted to live in Springfield, let alone in the truly tiny towns downstate, it was fun to pass through them.

  My sense of purpose as a senator made me recognize retroactively that there had been a certain slackness in my life before, or perhaps it was that previously I had been imposing structure on my days and now an external structure was imposed on them. I felt busy in a good way. I also, though this would have been difficult to express without sounding obnoxious, felt important. It wasn’t that I was swarmed with fans—the reality is that most Americans don’t know the names or faces of their own senators—and certainly I had detractors, too. But I felt what I’d felt in fifth grade when I’d been co-captain of my school’s safety patrol, what I’d felt speaking at my Wellesley graduation: that my distinct abilities were recognized and appreciated.

  I did not love fundraising, which, due to the laws against campaign activity in a federal building, usually took the form of walking with an aide to a featureless room inside an office the DSCC rented for this purpose a few blocks from the Senate buildings, sitting at a desk with a call sheet, and, for several hours, begging strangers, acquaintances, and friends for money. I didn’t love it early on, and the time it required only increased in the years to come. But again, I was Midwestern enough to not only accept the downside to any situation but even to experience it with relief; life wasn’t supposed to be perfect.

  Iowa

  April 26, 2015

  5:44 P.M.

  Backstage anywhere tends to be decidedly unglamorous. I’ve spent a significant portion of my political life in the bowels of convention halls, in underground parking lots and freight elevators and climbing the steps of loading docks, in the locker rooms of stadiums or just waiting to be called onstage from windowless cinder-block hallways—many, many windowless cinder-block hallways. Even when proper greenrooms exist, they tend to be utilitarian rather than fancy; also often windowless, with stained furniture and old carpet and sometimes an adjacent bathroom, though on more than one occasion, the bathroom hasn’t included a door. Fresh fruit is a luxury, and flowers are downright decadent.

  The union-hall greenroom in Cedar Rapids was no exception, featuring a massive mirror, a few stackable metal banquet chairs, and a “buffet” of bottled water and individual packets of Wheat Thins crackers. Over the course of twelve minutes, I rubbed elbows with—and again expressed my gratitude to, and posed for photos with—a local multimillionaire (she was the seventy-year-old widow of a seed entrepreneur) and her daughter-in-law; two city council members; and several of my campaign’s Iowa field directors and deputy directors.

  This time I officially met the woman with the cancer sign from the rope line. Holding out an arm, Theresa said, “And, Senator, you remember Misty LaPointe. She’s a bank teller here in Cedar Rapids, and these are her daughters, Lauren and Olivia.”

  Without a steel barrier between us, Misty jumped into my arms. She seemed both happy and about to cry, neither of which was unusual on the campaign trail. Multiple times a day, I was encircled in the arms of strangers, my hair was petted, my hands and arms grabbed. Sometimes I had to change my shirt or jacket because a woman’s lipstick or foundation had rubbed off on the fabric, usually at my shoulder.

  I said, “If you’re comfortable telling me a little more about your situation, when were you diagnosed?”

  “It’s BRCA1.” Her tone had become abruptly serious. “I didn’t even know what that was, but I found a lump on Christmas Day. It was so bad, Hillary. I was so worried.”

  “I take it you’re having adjuvant chemo?”

  She nodded. “I’m doing Friday afternoons so I’ll have the weekend to recover without taking off more work.”

  “Do your doctors know how long the chemo will last?”

  “They said at least six months. Hillary, oh my God, I’m sorry, but can we take a picture with you?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Misty passed her phone to Theresa, and we all quickly maneuvered into place. I was between Misty and Lauren, the teenager, my arms around both their backs. Olivia, who stood in front of us, glanced over her shoulder at me and said, “Are you going to win?”

  “That’s the plan,” I said, and all the adults in earshot laughed. I smiled as Theresa clicked the phone several times, though what Misty had told me was alarming. I had never stopped being struck by how unevenly good and bad fortune were distributed, even when you accounted for class, or maybe accounting for class was impossible. As we stepped apart, I said to Misty, “My team member Kenya is going to refer you to an aide in my Senate office, and she’ll help you find some resources, stuff like if you need someone to drive you to doctor’s appointments. But I want to keep in touch. Please let Kenya know how your first day of chemo goes, and she’ll pass the message on to me. I really mean it. I’m rooting for you.”

  “Senator, it’s time for us to leave,” Theresa said. “Misty, thank you so much for coming.”

  “And for bringing your wonderful daughters,” I added. Already, I was being ushered away, into a cinder-block hall that would lead to a stairwell that would lead to a rear parking lot, but in my last seconds in the greenroom, I called out “Stronger together!” and held up one fist. In reply, everyone assembled cheered.

  In the stairwell, I said to Kenya, “Call Frieda at the American Cancer Society and see what support services they have in Cedar Rapids.”

  1994

  Early on, the press and I enjoyed a cordial if not cozy relationship. As part of the Year of the Woman, I’d received an initial spike in attention before and after taking office that had mostly dissipated within a few months. Insofar as I had a national identity, it seemed I was perceived of as a hard worker, a pragmatic centrist, and a Midwestern bore. When I was the primary sponsor of a bill requiring greater accountability for government contracts and task orders, the Sun-Times ran a cartoon of me as a school principal exhorting my constituents to eat their vegetables; that same week, The New York Times referred to me as a “flat-voweled Democratic stalwart.” And in January 1994, a Tribune profile taking stock of my first year in office was headlined “Proudly Dull, Defiantly Dowdy: Hillary Rodham Is Just Fine with Being Uncool.” In equal parts, I was amused and insulted; before reading the headline, I had never considered myself especially proud, dull, defiant, dowdy, or uncool.

  A particular Tribune reporter, a woman in her early twenties named Erin Calhoun, somehow got it in her head that I had inordinately expensive taste in restaurants, haircuts, clothing, vacation destinations, and cultural outings. The implication was that, while my preferences might be in keeping with those of a person who’d attended Wellesley and Yale, they were at odds with those of my voters, especially downstate. But the most irritating part of Erin Calhoun’s preoccupation with my finances was that, though I was twenty years her senior, her tone implied that she was flagging the extravagance of a peer: “If it’s Labor Day Weekend, some of us are roasting hot dogs at Lincoln Park, and others of us—yep, looking at you, Hillary Rodham—are off dining on steak tartare and caviar at Trio….” I learned from an aide that, like me, Erin Calhoun had attended a public high school in an upper-middle-class suburb, in her case Buffalo Grove, before attending Loyola University in Rogers Park. I met her once at the Illinois State Fair, and she was unremarkable, with medium-brown hair, a doughy build, and an air of smugness; I presume she was present at other public events I participated in but we just didn’t speak. I hope she didn’t know, because I’m more than a little ashamed to admit it, that a few years existed when, to those closest to me, I’d routinely complain about Erin Calhoun for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Later, the frustration seemed amateur on my part, even quaint, given the relative mildness of her criticism and the fact that such criticism was limited enough that I knew its main practitioner by name, age, and high school.

  The strangest rumor about me in the ninet
ies, one initially promulgated by the alt weekly the Chicago Reader, was that I was a virgin. Another rumor was that I was a lesbian, but the virgin one proved to have more sticking power. Though I never was asked outright about it in an interview, my communications director was asked so many times that she developed a stock answer: “That’s not a question worth dignifying.” Oddly, the Reader first floated the virgin theory in an article that rebutted its own premise by mentioning the names of a few men I was alleged to have dated. Though two of the names were accurate, to my relief, my Northwestern colleague James’s was not among them. And really, from the time I took office until eleven years later, I didn’t know how good I had it mediawise. I didn’t understand how ugly things would get.

  Iowa

  April 26, 2015

  8:17 P.M.

  My event in Iowa City was in the student union at the university, a question-and-answer session with perhaps a hundred more people in attendance than in Cedar Rapids. It was satisfyingly substantive: Audience members asked about my policies and funding around mental health, whether I’d expand the number of families eligible for Pell grants, and how I’d address climate change. Two thirds of the way in, a man in his twenties said into the standing microphone in the aisle, “You claim to support campaign finance reform, yet you yourself are awash in dark money. You’re a hypocrite,” and the audience split into simultaneous applause and booing. But I suspected the booing came more from his un-Midwestern tone, name-calling, and lack of an actual question than from the issue he was raising, which was legitimate.