Tough Love

by Susan Rice

  Dr. Pullman looked at me impassively, glanced over at Ian knowingly, and replied, “You should have thought of that when you married him.”

  Stung and ashamed by my stereotypical expectations, I let the discussion of hair drop. When Maris’s hair started growing in earnest, to our surprise it was no-kidding red before changing to blond. I admit to hoping and assuming that I would have children who looked a bit more like me. Ian’s genes skunked mine, twice over.

  At Brookings, I had ample freedom not to travel and was able to breast-feed Maris much longer than Jake. When she was fourteen months old, I took my first extended trip away from her to a conference in Italy. While abroad, I continued pumping (this time I brought a backup, just in case) and returned home five or six days later, eager to resume feedings. When I greeted Maris that afternoon, she was a little standoffish, but I didn’t make much of it. After a short period of reacclimation, I lay her down on my lap to breast-feed. She bit me so forcefully and unexpectedly that I screamed in pain. My scream caused her to cry, and we both were hot messes.

  Rattled, I left it alone for several hours. That night, as usual, I took Maris upstairs to her room, and with the lights dimmed I held her closely on my lap in the rocking chair. After she relaxed, I offered her a bedtime feeding. After a few seconds of fussiness, Maris sat up erect on my lap, pulled down my shirt emphatically, pointed to her crib indicating that it was bedtime, and declared: “All Done!” To my surprise (and admiration), she was serious. Having so decreed, it was the end of breast-feeding.

  Not since that hard bite has Maris caused me much pain. On the contrary, I can think of very few others with whom I enjoy spending time as much. Smart, sincere, self-assured, Maris gets along well with almost everyone unless you mess with her.

  As younger children, Jake and Maris generally engaged nicely, despite their five-and-a-half-year age gap and their very different personalities and temperaments. As a mother, I learned early on that, with kids, like with birthday cake at a little friend’s party, you “get what you get and don’t get upset.” In other words, I believe that kids come into this world precooked to a substantial extent, with the capacity to be molded and shaped, but with much of their nature established. That humbling conclusion came hard and powerfully to me, as someone who is a roll up your sleeves and take-charge kind of leader. Without question, parents, extended family, school, and other external influences play a critical role in shaping a child. That’s why I have been a fairly hands-on parent. I have also seen how the same two parents in the same household can produce very different characters. To me, that’s part of the great joy of parenting; it keeps you on your toes, and it’s never boring. It’s also forced me to develop more patience than I would have otherwise, though still not enough.

  Since Jake was born, I have viewed being a mother as my most important and rewarding job. Motherhood, I believe, has also made me a better policymaker. It has given me a sense of priority about what matters most. It has invested me more deeply in the future and in the long-term consequences of policy choices. An issue like climate change is one that concerns me deeply in any case. Still, it becomes personal when I consider the impact of our action or inaction on my children and grandchildren.

  Motherhood also gave me relief from the stress of work. Nothing offered a better sense of perspective than holding my child, reading him a bedtime story, cheering her at a soccer game, or worrying about his academic challenges. The kids have always provided me both comfort and opportunities to have direct and meaningful influence on things large and small, when the problems of the world seem intractable. Moreover, nothing puts a work or policy challenge into its proper dimensions like a child’s health crisis or a very sick parent.

  Ian and I have tried our best to raise healthy, self-respecting, curious children who care about others. Parenting any child is challenging but there can be additional challenges when raising self-aware, mixed-race children who must find their unique identities as white-looking black kids in privileged white environs within a majority-black city. I have wrestled with how best to imbue our kids with a sense of their history and responsibilities, when they have grown up mostly free from burden and another generation removed from the struggles of their ancestors. There are limits to what family history, book learning, travel, and service can teach. Without knowing the hurt of being serially doubted or discounted, without feeling what it’s like to be judged reflexively on the basis of their appearance, there is a potent aspect of the African American experience that I cannot adequately impart to my children. This recognition leaves me feeling that I have fallen short in an important part of parenting that is peculiarly my domain.

  In tackling these and all the other challenges of child-rearing, I am blessed to have an exceptional partner in Ian, who is an actively engaged, fully committed parent beloved by our kids. We share the same values and dreams for our kids, and we are mostly a good team, even though we differ in style. I am the more strict parent, less flexible and forgiving, quicker to discipline. When Jake attempts to hijack a family vacation by compelling us all to go birding in some distant, obscure location, or Maris begs to spend nearly a month (yet again) at summer camp in the middle of her high school years when working or traveling might be better preparation for college, I am the parent who is the heavy hand and readily says “No.” Ian is gentler, more patient, and prefers to get to “yes,” but even he has limits. The kids have learned not to push him too far, because when rarely their dad gets truly angry, it is a sight to behold. Together, Ian and I produced two smart, loving kids who know their minds and are unabashed in expressing their views. Still, they remain works in progress; our jobs are far from done.

  Brookings was the ideal place for me to focus on family while also expanding my foreign policy horizons and developing a more global perspective. While there, I could also engage in political activity on the side and take leaves of absence as needed. In 2004, I assisted Governor Howard Dean’s primary campaign as a very part-time outside advisor, because he was the only leading Democratic candidate to oppose the Iraq War. When he flamed out following his infamous shrieking speech after the Iowa caucuses, I sat out the rest of the primary season.

  Still chastened by the crushing Dukakis loss, in the summer of 2004 I chose nonetheless to take a leave of absence from Brookings and accept a job on the Kerry campaign, because I was committed to defeating George W. Bush, particularly after his disastrous decision to invade Iraq. John Kerry was then, in my mind, a strong if imperfect candidate. His Iraq War stance was unsatisfying, mainly insofar as he claimed to be “for it before I was against it,” while his understandable focus on Vietnam seemed dated and largely irrelevant to me.

  Tall, lean, and carefully coiffed with thick gray hair and angular features, Kerry not only looked the traditional part of president but he was also deeply experienced, energetic, and eager to do battle. Working with my old friend Randy Beers, I contributed to crafting Kerry’s policy positions, supported debate preparation, and co-managed our small foreign policy team. I also served as a television surrogate on foreign policy matters and liaised with our senior outside advisors. It was a far more significant role than I played on the 1988 Dukakis campaign and one that helped hone my political experience. At this stage, though I had no personal interest in running for office, I recognized that, as a political appointee, my best path back into a policy role was likely through a winning campaign.

  On election evening 2004, like many campaign staffers, I flew from our headquarters in Washington up to Boston for the election night party. Unlike sixteen years before, the race this time was tight down to the wire, and the early exit polls looked good for Kerry. The Bush team, seeing the same exit polls, was reportedly downcast as they returned to Washington on Air Force One, and our side was buoyant—until about 9 p.m., when it started to seem the exit polls might be wrong. By midnight, Ohio hung in the balance and, without a come-from-behind-win there, Kerry looked cooked. In the light of morning, it was clear we h
ad lost, and Kerry conceded.

  Kerry’s defeat was even more devastating than Dukakis’s had been. This, my second outing on the team of a Massachusetts Democrat, was a far more successful campaign than my first, but it seemed to suffer from some of the same ills. These ranged from a failure to energize African American voters, a misplaced assumption that logic and integrity were sufficient for victory, and the lack of a consistent, strong counterpunch—whether on Iraq, the swift boat veterans who smeared Kerry unfairly, or charges that Kerry was a “flip-flopper.”

  Notwithstanding the loss, I didn’t feel that my service on the Kerry campaign had been a waste of time or effort. It was a noble and necessary battle, fought ably on behalf of a laudable candidate, by good people. And, of course, it was during the 2004 contest that I came to meet the man, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate from the state of Illinois, who would enable me finally to say that I worked on a winning presidential bid.

  After the Kerry campaign, I returned to Brookings to pursue my policy research and writing, especially on weak states and the impact of state fragility on U.S. national security, and I continued to deepen my understanding of other regions. When Senator Obama asked me in early 2007 to join his campaign and co-lead his outside foreign policy team, I had said “I am all-in,” but didn’t immediately envision how deep my involvement would become. Through 2007, I was able to balance my home life and my work at Brookings with my involvement on the campaign, which included fundraising, recruiting experts, and advising Obama on speeches, debate prep, and foreign policy matters. When the primary season began in 2008, I had to take unpaid leave from Brookings in order to serve additionally as a public surrogate and travel as requested by the campaign.

  From the outset, advising Obama came easily to me. Our minds worked in similar ways (although, I hate to admit, his is keener than mine and that of any of our colleagues). Our policy instincts and values meshed almost completely; we respected each other’s intellect and could communicate plainly without pretense or polish. We both were hands-on, detail-oriented thinkers who demanded high-quality analysis and output. As I grew to know him well, it seemed I could predict with almost uncanny accuracy what he was thinking about a particular issue and even how he was likely to say it. Keeping this odd intuition to myself, I puzzled at how natural it felt to me. Eventually, I realized that this was not prescience but the fact that, more often than not, what Obama would say was very much what I was thinking and would have said myself, sometimes almost verbatim. This instinct made serving as a surrogate on his behalf a whole lot easier.

  To the task of building a bench of foreign policy experts, I brought my own prior experience in government and a network of seasoned colleagues—contacts who were not readily available to a junior senator running as an upstart candidate. Like all of the early Obama supporters, these recruits joined the team for the right reasons—not because they were angling for their next job, but because they believed in the message of the candidate and the type of change he intended to bring. This kind of camaraderie and selfless devotion to mission buoyed us through the rough pre-primary season throughout 2007, when Obama consistently lagged Clinton in national polls and took some punches in early debates. Clinton had tried to portray Obama as green, unprepared for the weight of the office, and unable to unite the party.

  After coming in third place to Obama in Iowa, Clinton felt she needed to go on the offensive, personally and through surrogates. And for the Obama team, losing a heartbreaker in New Hampshire meant it was time to hunker down for a grueling battle, understanding that it wasn’t going to be short or pretty.

  Indeed, it got quite ugly very quickly. Clinton surrogates, including but not limited to BET founder Bob Johnson and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, used racially tinged language to denigrate Obama. They and others variously implied that he may have dealt drugs; attended an Islamist madrassa; was Muslim and/or a foreigner; had only gotten as far as he had because he was black; and could be assassinated if elected. Former president Bill Clinton dismissed Obama’s candidacy (or, as he later insisted, Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War) as “a fairy tale,” which offended many African Americans. Following the South Carolina primary, Bill Clinton discounted Obama’s twenty-nine-point drubbing of Hillary as the result of the black vote and suggested his victory would be as fleeting as Jesse Jackson’s, saying: “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.”

  After South Carolina, the contest became even more combative on both sides. Among other attacks, Senator Clinton and her surrogates regularly questioned whether Obama could garner the support of “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans.” The race-baiting was shocking and very dispiriting to me, as one who had been (and remains) proud to have served President Clinton and had long viewed the Clintons as supportive of African Americans. It took me some while to get over my sore feelings; but, with time and in victory, I did.

  Also challenging was politics within the Democratic Party, particularly the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Many CBC members initially strongly supported Hillary, out of years of loyalty to the Clintons. Some also viewed Obama as an upstart who had failed to wait his turn, a young Turk prematurely challenging the hierarchical black political establishment. The Clinton campaign’s racial overtones prompted some misgivings, notably from Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, but, like most CBC members, all of whom were also coveted super-delegates, he refrained from endorsing Obama until it was clear Hillary would not win the nomination.

  I got firsthand insight into this dynamic when Eric Holder, then a former deputy attorney general, and I went to meet privately with New Jersey congressman Donald Payne in the spring of 2008 to seek his endorsement of Obama. Congressman Payne had long been a good friend and ally of mine, a close collaborator on African issues, and a respected senior member of the CBC. Eric and I labored for over an hour to convince Payne that Obama was the real deal, right on the issues, and likely to win the nomination. Payne, we argued, shouldn’t miss the opportunity to be a relatively early supporter of this remarkable young leader we were convinced could become the first African American president. But Payne stonewalled us, returning variously to his commitment to the Clintons, his doubts about Obama’s bona fides, and his deep resentment of these young, know-it-all, come-from-nowhere, elite, Ivy League–educated politicians like Obama and then–Newark mayor Cory Booker, who haven’t paid their dues. It was several more months before Payne finally (and perhaps reluctantly) got on the Obama bandwagon. Our failure to win over Payne did not hurt my relationship with him, but it was an abject reminder of the complex racial politics that imbued the 2008 Democratic primary contest.

  My parents were also interesting barometers for me to read.

  In early 2007, when I told Dad that I was backing Obama, he balked. Concerned that a black man could not be elected president, he tried to dissuade me from leaving the Clinton camp. I told him I could see a path for Obama to victory, but mostly, “He represents what I care about.” I also felt it was too soon for another Clinton and argued that political dynasties, as with the Bushes, were getting tired. Plus, I wasn’t nearly as sure as he was that a black man couldn’t win the presidency.

  This kind of robust but friendly argument epitomized my adult relationship with my father. Ever since childhood, the fundamentals between Dad and me were never shaken. We shared a strong intellectual connection, a fascination with the world and public policy, an unsparing sense of humor, a passion for tennis, and a readiness to stand up for what we believe without fear of others.

  Our strengths and weaknesses closely aligned. We both were often accused of intimidating others, even when (mostly) that was not our intent. Dad appeared overly serious, walking around with what looked to be a frown on his face when really he was just driving himself intensely. Similarly, when not familiar with me personally, people frequently misread anger in my face when I am not smilin
g.

  Despite his dedication to me and those he loved most, dealing with Dad was not always easy. He never shed his quick temper, inherent impatience, and fierce independence. Getting along with him required accepting the good with the difficult, though sometimes it was necessary just to fight it out and move on. Dad had an indomitable spirit.

  I was deeply disappointed when, in 1997, shortly after Jake was born, Dad decided to move across the country. His timing couldn’t have been worse. He was seventy-eight, and I wanted him close—especially now that his grandson had arrived. Yet, ever since his graduate school days at Berkeley, Dad had dreamt of returning to the West Coast. He was also sick of Washington after forty years and eager to escape the Mid-Atlantic, particularly its tedious winters with occasional treacherous ice storms and excessive summer humidity. Over several years, Dad had toured the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Northern California, looking for the perfect spot. California, he concluded, was too expensive. He searched for a good view, nearby salmon fishing, reasonable cost of living, and proximity to a major airport.

  Finally, he found his place: a comfortable house with an exceptional view of the Columbia River and Mount Hood framed spectacularly by his living room and kitchen picture windows. Camas, Washington, is just across the river from Portland, Oregon, and twenty minutes from its airport. Washington State has no state income tax, and Oregon has no sales tax. It was perfect for my frugal economist father. Initially, I agonized that he was heading to a strange part of the country as a single man, where he knew no one and would be lonely and vulnerable if he had a health crisis.

  I was wrong to worry. Dad quickly immersed himself in Camas, making scores of new friends, including eligible women, through a group of active seniors called “The Ospreys.” The group met most mornings for an hour-long walk in the woods and then coffee and breakfast at a nearby café. To my relief, he also found an excellent network of doctors. Whenever I visited him in Camas, he was happy, relaxed, and appreciative of his newfound life out west.