HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton

by Jonathan Allen

  But Hillary, who was just then embarking on her presidential campaign, still wanted something from McCaskill—the Missourian’s endorsement. Women’s groups, including EMILY’s List, pressured McCaskill to jump aboard the Clinton bandwagon, and Hillary courted her new colleague personally, setting up a one-on-one lunch in the Senate Dining Room in early 2007. Rather than ask for her support directly, Hillary took a softer approach, seeking common ground on the struggles of campaigning, including the physical toll. “There’s a much more human side to Hillary,” McCaskill thought.

  Obama, meanwhile, was pursuing her, too, in a string of conversations on the Senate floor. Clearly, Hillary thought she had a shot at McCaskill. But for McCaskill, the choice was always whether to endorse Obama or to stay on the sidelines. In January 2008 she not only became the first female senator to endorse Obama but also made the case to his team that her support would be amplified if Governors Kathleen Sebelius and Janet Napolitano came out for him at roughly the same time. McCaskill offered up a small courtesy, calling Hillary’s personal aide, Huma Abedin, ahead of the endorsement to make sure it didn’t blindside Hillary.

  But the trifecta of women leaders giving Obama their public nod was a devastating blow. Hate is too weak a word to describe the feelings that Hillary’s core loyalists still have for McCaskill, who seemed to deliver a fresh endorsement of Obama—and a caustic jab at Hillary—every day during the primary.

  Many of the other names on the traitor side of the ledger were easy to remember, from Ted Kennedy to John Lewis, the civil rights icon whose defection had been so painful that Bill Clinton seemed to be in a state of denial about it. In private conversations, he tried to explain away Lewis’s motivations for switching camps midstream, after Obama began ratcheting up pressure for black lawmakers to get on “the right side of history.” Lewis, because of his own place in American history and the unique loyalty test he faced with the first viable black candidate running for president, is a perfect example of why Clinton aides had to keep track of more detailed information than the simple binary of for and against. Perhaps someday Lewis’s betrayal could be forgiven.

  Ted Kennedy (another seven on the hit list) was a different story. He had slashed Hillary worst of all, delivering a pivotal endorsement speech for Obama just before the Super Tuesday primaries that cast her as yesterday’s news and Obama as the rightful heir to Camelot. He did it in conjunction with a New York Times op-ed by Caroline Kennedy that said much the same thing in less thundering tones. Bill Clinton had pleaded with Kennedy to hold off, but to no avail. Still, Clinton aides exulted in schadenfreude when their enemies faltered. Years later they would joke about the fates of the folks who they felt had betrayed them. “Bill Richardson: investigated; John Edwards: disgraced by scandal; Chris Dodd: stepped down,” one said to another. “Ted Kennedy,” the aide continued, lowering his voice to a whisper for the punch line, “dead.”

  For several months, as the campaign intensified, Balderston and Elrod kept close tabs on an even smaller subset of targeted members of Congress, who were still undecided after Super Tuesday. Because Hillary and her team made such an intense effort to swing these particular lawmakers in the final months of the campaign, they are the first names that spring to mind when Hillary’s aides talk about who stuck a knife in her back and twisted it.

  For Balderston, the betrayal of Jim Moran, the congressman from Alexandria, Virginia, was perhaps the most personal. The two men were social friends in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, about six miles from campaign headquarters. They were even in the same book club. For months Balderston had casually pressed Moran about his endorsement. Moran played coy. He praised Hillary but came up short of promising an endorsement. Then in January 2008, Moran left a voice message for Balderston: I’m all in for Hillary, he said. Naturally, Balderston was excited. The courtship of delegates hadn’t been going well, and adding a new name to Hillary’s column was welcome news. But Balderston’s joy was short-lived. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed a couple of weeks later as he read the news that Moran was set to endorse Obama. He called the congressman, his old chum from the neighborhood. “Do not ever call me again!” Balderston said. He stopped going to the book club.

  Bill was particularly incensed at California representative Lois Capps. He had campaigned for Capps’s husband, Walter, who knocked out an incumbent congresswoman in 1996, delivered the eulogy the following year at Walter’s congressional memorial service—calling him “entirely too nice to be in Congress”—and then helped Lois Capps win her husband’s seat in a special election. The Cappses’ daughter, Laura, had even worked in the Clinton White House.

  “How could this happen?” Bill asked, after Lois Capps came out for Obama at the end of April.

  “Do you know her daughter is married to Bill Burton?” one of Hillary’s aides replied.

  Burton worked for Obama as a high-profile campaign spokesman and would go on to join the White House staff, but this did little to assuage the former president’s frustration. Bill and Hillary were shocked at how many Democrats had abandoned them to hook up with the fresh brand of Barack Obama. The injuries and insults were endless, and each blow hurt more than the last, the cumulative effect of months and months of defections. During the spring and summer, the Clinton campaign went days on end without adding a single endorsement.

  It reached the point where Hillary—in a stale, sterile conference room at the DNC headquarters—asked uncommitted “superdelegates” to give her their word, privately, that they would back her if it came to a vote at the convention, even if they weren’t willing to take the political risk of coming out for her publicly ahead of time. Unlike the regular delegates who were elected in state party primaries and caucuses, the superdelegates, a group of lawmakers, governors, and other Democratic officials, could support whichever candidate they wanted to at the convention. As a last resort, Hillary pleaded with them to simply refrain from adding their names to Obama’s column. Bill would make that pitch, too, in phone calls and when he crossed paths with lawmakers. Please, just don’t endorse Obama, he cajoled.

  Balderston and Elrod recorded them all, good and bad, one by one, for history—and for Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s tall, balding, postpresidency aide-de-camp. A former University of Florida frat boy, he had a fierce loyalty to the former president that competed with his instinct for accumulating wealth and status. One longtime associate, reflecting the view of some others in the Clinton world, described him as “always looking out for number one.” But if that was true, Bill Clinton came a very close second. As a young man, Band served in the Clinton White House and then went on to help create and oversee the vast Clinton web of charities.

  Most important for politicians, donors, and journalists alike, he became the gatekeeper to Bill Clinton. Few question Band’s strategic vision in setting up Bill’s postpresidency philanthropic empire, and he counts Huma Abedin, Hillary’s top personal aide, among his close friends. But some in Hillaryland take a dim view of Band’s influence on the former president. He can be so abrasive that Maggie Williams, the person closest to Hillary, told friends at one point that she quit working at the Clinton Foundation in large part because of Band. But Band was in charge of the Clinton database, a role that made him the arbiter of when other politicians received help from the Clintons and when they didn’t.

  “It wasn’t so much punishing as rewarding, and I really think that’s an important point,” said one source familiar with Bill’s thinking. “It wasn’t so much ‘We’re going to get you.’ It was ‘We’re going to help our friends.’ I honestly think that’s an important subtlety in Bill Clinton, in his head. She’s not as calculated, but he is.”

  Dining with a few friends at Cafe Milano in Georgetown in 2012, Bill Clinton recalled what he considered to be a major rebuke from a junior congressman, Jason Altmire, who had been helped by the Clintons early on in his career. “If you don’t have loyalty in politics,” the former president said, “what do you have?”


  If there was a poster boy for the betrayal-and-revenge narrative, it was Altmire, a tall, broad-shouldered former Florida State University football player who had won his western Pennsylvania House seat in the midterm Democratic landslide of 2006. Altmire had worked for six years as a congressional aide, a stint highlighted by his selection to work on Hillary’s health care reform task force in 1993. It was the only big job he’d had in Washington before winning an election, and he knew it had been an important springboard in his career. He was a prime target for Hillary as she courted superdelegates in the spring of 2008.

  Humbling herself, Hillary met with many of these superdelegates in one-on-one sessions in the second-floor conference room of the Capitol Hill building that houses the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). When Hillary wanted to elude what she called the “paparazzi,” she held the meetings at the nearby Phoenix Park Hotel. But it wasn’t just the press that Clinton wanted to avoid at the DCCC. The House Democrats’ campaign arm was controlled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a technically neutral power whose private leanings had been made clear when her entire inner circle of House members jumped on the Obama bandwagon in late January and early February. Brian Wolff, an Arkansas native and the executive director of the DCCC, worked with Balderston and Elrod to redirect lawmakers who were in the building into meetings with Hillary and also to keep tempers cool. At least once, at a time when the tension was running high, aides to Clinton and Pelosi had to scramble to keep the two women from encountering each other. “It would have been a problem,” said one source. Some of Pelosi’s friends chalked up her hostility toward Clinton’s groundbreaking run as motivated partly by jealousy and partly by a desire to tap into Obama’s base. “I think it was very calculated, that support,” said one friend of both women. “It was obvious that was going to bring in a whole new constituency of voters that were important to the Speaker, and that’s politics.”

  The DCCC and the Phoenix Park Hotel, both within walking distance of the Capitol, were chosen in part so that it would be harder for the almighty superdelegates to say they didn’t have time to meet with Hillary. It was telling that a former first lady, New York senator, and onetime presidential front-runner had to worry about members of Congress avoiding her. It was also telling that Hillary’s heavy push for superdelegates, particularly those like Jason Altmire who hardly registered on the Washington power meter, didn’t begin in earnest until after Super Tuesday in February. She had thought the nomination would be hers by then, and in any case, she detested asking lawmakers and donors for votes and money. She preferred to be the magnanimous one, dispensing favors rather than collecting them.

  Hillary had begun to lose Altmire long before she realized she needed to compete for him. While it took her until the spring of 2008 to get her delegate outreach into gear, Obama had first approached Altmire in the summer of 2007. By October of that year, the junior Pennsylvania congressman was invited, along with Representative Patrick Murphy, to attend a speech that Michelle Obama gave to a group in Philadelphia. After the speech the two congressmen spent the better part of an hour backstage with the future first lady, who sat on a couch and sipped a bottle of water as she explained her husband’s strategy for beating the Clinton juggernaut. Even though he had slipped far behind Hillary in the national polls, Obama would win Iowa and New Hampshire, turning the race into a three-way fight with Clinton and John Edwards. Edwards would drop out of the race soon thereafter. “When it’s a one-on-one battle, that’s when Barack’s going to shine,” Michelle told the two junior Democrats. “She’s not going to know what hit her.”

  Four years later Altmire was still impressed with Michelle Obama’s presentation. “She called exactly what happened,” he said. “She was wrong about New Hampshire, but she called exactly what was going to happen.” Murphy, a close friend of Altmire, already had endorsed Barack Obama, joining the future president at a time when the outlook for his election was bleak. Altmire, rumored to be ready to join up, too, held off—he would keep his powder dry. Obama made another appeal on the floor of the House of Representatives during President George W. Bush’s 2008 State of the Union address, asking Altmire if he was “ready to come over,” then made contact every six weeks or so to check in and see if an endorsement was forthcoming.

  Hillary finally reached out to Altmire on February 29, 2008. She called his house and left a voice message. “The momentum’s on our side,” she said, alluding to the Texas and Ohio primaries set for the following Tuesday. From a public relations standpoint, they were must-win contests. If she failed to at least win the popular vote in either state, her campaign was over. The delegate count was a different matter because the general public, and even many experienced political journalists, didn’t really get how important it was. Win or lose in those states, Hillary couldn’t catch Obama in the national delegate math without an implausible wave of superdelegates rushing to her side. But she wasn’t ready to give up on flipping them into her column, and neither was Bill.

  Altmire got a phone call from one of Bill’s aides on the morning of March 4, the day of the Ohio and Texas primaries. He was told to hold for the former president, but Bill never came on the line. The races were still too close to call. Once it was clear that Hillary was going to capture the popular vote in both states, Altmire got a second call. This time Bill was ready to make the pitch.

  “He comes on the phone. He is flying, you can hear it in his voice,” Altmire recalled.

  “We really need you,” Bill told him.

  But Altmire worried that Hillary would fail to connect with the conservative voters in his Pennsylvania district. Bill pushed back, citing the margins of his own victories in the district in 1992 and 1996. He knew the voters there as well as Altmire did. Hillary, Bill argued, had been a popular state-level first lady in rural, conservative Arkansas and had won her Senate seat twice in part because she had done better than expected in conservative upstate New York. Calling an old favor to mind, the former president also thanked Altmire for his work on the 1993 health reform task force. As he had with Obama, Altmire told Clinton he didn’t like the superdelegate system or the idea that his vote would carry more weight than those of each of his constituents. He didn’t plan to endorse anyone, he told the former president.

  But the Clintons didn’t give up easily. Altmire was one of about a dozen Democratic superdelegates invited to a cocktail party on March 12 at the Clintons’ multimillion-dollar Washington house, nestled among foreign embassies and a stone’s throw from the sprawling vice president’s residence. At the party, Altmire asked Hillary a pretty simple question: You’re way behind. What’s your path to victory? “You all are superdelegates,” she told the group, “and the purpose of superdelegates is to make up your mind and make a decision that might be contrary to what the voters have decided.” That didn’t make much sense to Altmire; nor did it appear to sway many of his colleagues.

  On St. Patrick’s Day, Obama visited a community college in Altmire’s district and invited the congressman to join him. Like a football recruit at a major Division I university, Altmire was given a window into what it was like to hang out with the cool crowd. Accompanied by David Axelrod, he watched Obama deliver the speech, give a press conference, and sit for an interview with Gwen Ifill of PBS.

  Then he clambered into the senator’s SUV for a ride to Pittsburgh International Airport. Avoiding the primary elephant in their midst, Obama and Altmire talked about their daughters, who are about the same age. When they got to the airport, Obama signaled to his security detail to get out of the car and leave the two pols alone in the back of the SUV.

  “I’m going to win this election,” Obama said bluntly. “I’m going to be your president, and I want you to be on our team.… You don’t have to commit right now, but I want your support.”

  Altmire said he was in a tough spot, with Clinton on the verge of winning his district by a big number. Obama reiterated his confidence and his desire to get Altm
ire on board, and then he signaled for a Secret Service officer to open the door so he could go to his plane.

  But Altmire still had something to say. He wanted Obama to know that they had made a connection, and he blurted out his good wishes for Obama’s upcoming speech on race in Philadelphia. “Hey, Senator, I know tomorrow is a very important day for you. Good luck,” Altmire said.

  Obama turned to the officer to signal that the door should be closed again. He leaned over toward Altmire with a look of determination on his face, brow furrowed, eyes squinted. “We’re going to be fine,” he said. “They told me I wasn’t going to be able to beat Hillary Clinton, and I’m going to beat both Clintons.… This is just one more hurdle. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  The difference between the two campaigns struck Altmire as remarkable: while Hillary was begging for help, Obama didn’t need it. As Obama delivered his speech on race the next day, Altmire thought, for the first time, “This guy is special. There’s something about this guy that’s just different than anyone else.” It was Obama, not Clinton, whom he would endorse if he were pushed into that corner. Though he didn’t tell anyone yet, Altmire had made up his mind—he wanted Obama to win. He felt as if he were actually doing Hillary a favor by keeping his thoughts to himself. In Hillaryland, he would soon be regarded as an opportunist because he had extracted so much face time from the Clintons—and then as an outright traitor.

  In April, Altmire got word that Bill wanted to talk to him again. The congressman told Hillary’s team that the two men could travel together between events at venues about an hour apart, a ride that Hillary’s aides would later recall as another delicious plum they had given an ungrateful backbencher. Altmire got the full backstage and onstage treatment from the former president. Bill praised him in his speech at the first event, then put his hand on the congressman’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, classic Clinton moves for conveying intimacy to an audience. When the event wrapped up, Altmire got in the car. Bill followed, cell phone to his ear, making it clear that he was talking to Hillary. In the SUV, Altmire gave the former president his now-practiced spiel about disliking the superdelegate process.