Hillaryzilla

I don’t know what it is about the caucus process but it’s not working for me. At least not in Nebraska, or Washington, or Main, or Louisiana.

Obama scored another round of delegates today in mostly caucus elections, fortunately not many delegates were at stake and the states are mostly unimportant.

Still, I’ll feel better when we get these caucus states out of the way and get back to real primary elections, especially in states where there are not so many black voters. And thank God for Super Delegates. Bill knows them all by name and phone number and what he did for them as President.

It’s funny, even Bill didn’t do well in caucus voting. Maybe it’s a Clinton thing. I can’t help but wonder why Obama gets more votes than me in caucus elections. He’s a great speaker on stage in front of a large crowd. In small groups he stammers and stutters and couldn’t complete a sentence if he was reading it off a card.

Bill says the caucus system is flawed, it’s undemocratic, and caters mostly to party activists; the noisy members who forget to vote. Next week is the Potomac primary. Maryland, Virginia, and DC are mostly black so they’ll go to Obama. But Wisconsin and Hawaii have their caucus votes, too, and hardly any blacks live there. We’ll see.

Damn those caucuses. Whose idea was that?

This has been brewing for awhile but it’s time. My campaign is struggling the past few months and it’s important to find out why, change it or fix it, move on. Leadership requires insight, the ability to make the tough decisions.

Tonight Bill was on the phone talking with Donald Trump. Trump calls whenever he gets a new dirty joke to tell. Bill is laughing so hard tears are coming down his cheeks, so I grab the phone and say, “Donald? Hillary. Listen, I need some advice about managing my campaign staff. Can we talk?”

My mistake. The man could talk the lips off Cher. He goes on an on about how I need campaign staffers with dedication, loyalty, experience, street smarts, and a good complexion. I’m like, “What’s a good complexion have to do with anything, Donald?”

He says, “Who on your staff of closest advisors has the worst complexion? Find that person and pull the trigger. You’re fired! That’s it. Everything gets better after that. Trust me.”

Who would have thought that a little Clearasil and some make up could save a career? Well, tomorrow I have to set up a meeting with Patti Doyle. Then another with Maggie Williams. I call it a Complexion Check. One is like strawberry ice cream. The other is like mocha latte.

I got a call on my cell phone twice today from Katie Couric. Again. The woman just won’t leave me alone. It seems that Mike Wallace is sick and CBS wants her to interview me.

Mike Wallace is still alive? Who knew?

So, we’re talking about interview topics and Obama and how tiring it gets on the campaign trail and suddenly, Katie asks me, “Do you pop vitamins? Do you mainline coffee?”

Sure. Like I’m going to answer that and tell her for all the world to know what it is I do to keep going. I say, “Katie, I take vitamins. I drink tea, not coffee anymore.” She gets all whiny and pouty on the phone and tells me I must be hiding something, “Where do you get the stamina?”

Sometimes it’s just easier to make things up. “Well, Katie,” I said, “My two secrets to staying healthy– wash your hands all the time. And hot peppers. I eat a lot of hot peppers.”

I just made that up. The wags at CBS will believe anything. Just ask Dan Rather.

So I loaned my own campaign some money. Big deal. It’s old news. Look, early January was a tough time for campaign contributions, what with the loss in Iowa, Christmas shopping bills that came due, and so on. I can understand why people stopped contributing.

What I don’t understand is why people keep asking the same question today, “Where did Hillary get $5-million?”

Sure, in this age of full disclosure it’s a fair question. I’m very grateful that no one asked it in public when reporters and television cameras were around. $5-million sure didn’t come from Bill’s pension fund or my salary as Senator.

The truth is that we’ve been frugal and saved quite a bit of money over the past few years. There’s speaking appearances, book deals, fund raising funds that didn’t get spent, movie rights, gifts, free lunches. It adds up.

Howard Wolfson and Terry McAuliffe came up with the loan idea. They said it was a good way to buy some time and shake out our bloated campaign operation. Over the past year we’d picked up a bunch of fair weather operatives, consultants, and hangers-on, so we asked everyone to work for nothing in January, then I made the loan.

Campaign staffers scattered like cock roaches in an Arkansas kitchen when the lights come on.

The only ones left were the true loyalists. Contributions picked up again right after New Hampshire and today looks like another good day, too. If it doesn’t work out, so what? I’ll get $10-million for the movie rights alone.

SuperTuesday could have been worse. We started the night well behind in delegates and finished the night slightly behind in delegates. That’s progress, but if we can’t lick this race issue it will be an increasingly tough road ahead.

What bothers me as much as anything about the race issue is that it’s totally partisan. It’s the blacks who show their racist attraction to Obama, not the whites. Well, except for white women. I guess it’s the forbidden fruit syndrome. White women love what they aren’t supposed to have.

But what about blacks? Are they too blind to realize that they’re voting based on race and not based on issues? White women are split between me and Obama. Blacks are voting four to one against me.

They’re voting against me? And I’m married to the first black African-American President for crying out loud! There’s no loyalty among the colored folks, that’s for sure. And after all we’ve done for them through the years.

If blacks were truly issues oriented then their primary votes would be split about evenly between Obama and me because we’re about the same on most issues. Except Iraq. And health care. And the economy. And vision. And foreign policy.

This whole race is about race.

So a bunch of us from Yale were sitting around a table in New Haven today, when my old friend Penn said, “Welcome home, dear friend. We are so proud of you.” And those damn tears showed up again. There must be a primary election tomorrow.

Penn Rhodeen was here with me in the beginning as my boss, and he’s still here, a few pounds heavier, with more gray hair, still fighting the fine fight. We met when I came to Connecticut in 1972 as a law student at Yale. So he goes and tells everyone in the room today that I showed up on his doorstep in a pair of purple bell bottoms, preaching child advocacy, and women’s rights. It’s over 35 years later and I’m still preaching.

We both worked here at the Yale Child Study Center back in the day. Negro or white, rich or poor, we fought for women’s rights, for children, for the future of a country bogged down in an unpopular war run by a president we all hated.

The moment in New Haven today was not lost on me. I started law school here. I met Bill here. I shed a few tears then, too. What’s a tear or two between friends?

Newspaper editors love digging up dirt from the past. Even the New York Times plays both sides of the street. They endorse me one day, dig up a little dirt the next day.

Yesterday’s brouhaha was a photo the Times dug up from 1960-something or other, and an article where I was quoted using the N-word. Negro. Not nigger. I would never use that. Well, not since I used it on Bill when he told me about Monica Lewinsky.

The problem here is a generational thing. Back in the 60s it was still appropriate to use ‘coloreds‘ when talking about African-Americans. In mixed company we used ‘Negro.’ Frankly, we should have stopped at Negro because it fits better.

After all, colored doesn’t really work because regardless of our color we’re all colored one way or another. It’s as if the whites of a few hundred years thought they were absent any color. I wonder what they thought of sun tans.

Anyway, colored didn’t work for me back in high school and college, and doesn’t work today, of course. I prefer Negro. Black is just as wrong as white and colored.

African-American? Puhleeeze. Gimme a break, people. Cut your ties with the prehistoric past and move on. It’s the 21st century already. Like it or not, if you live here you’re a plain old American, just like me. Deal with it.

How do I keep myself looking so good during a grueling 16-hour-a-day presidential campaign? That’s the most asked question I get from women.

Do they want to know about health care, or child care, or the economy, or the war in Iraq? Nope. No one ever asks about such things unless they’re the butch half of a committed female partnership.

Thank God I don’t have to worry about how I look each day. We hired a few people to come in, pick out the perfect wardrobe for each occasion through the day. That’s a lot of pantsuits. That’s the only way to disguise those thighs, camouflage those calves.

It’s easy. Each day starts the same way. A little exercise, a shower, some makeup, do the hair, add hose, don the pantsuit, slip into some heels and I’m done. The key to this whole image thing is the pantsuits and the hair. The suits have to be feminine but in a businesslike way to attract male voters. Add the streaked blonde hair and my feminine side shows through, but it doesn’t intimidate women.

Oprah does the same thing by staying fat.

Political debates are all about two things– preparation and implementation. We rehearse every possible scenario, every question, again and again.

After preparation comes the debate and actual answers. So, it’s usually just a matter of being able to remember the processed answer for any question. Toss in a little drama here and there, some smiles, a frown, a scolding look and a hit or two on George Bush, and call it a night.

One of the most telling questions in recent weeks had to do with a young voter who has always had a Bush or Clinton on the ballot since 1980. That’s 28 years. With a little luck, it’ll be another 8 years. Until Chelsea is old enough for her run at the White House. Timing is everything.

Still, it makes some voters uneasy that there’s always a Clinton around and running for something. It’s as if the United States has become Argentina and only family members of past presidents are allowed to run for office.

The best way to deflect such criticism is by humor, pointed barbs, and a smile. My favorite is, “It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush, and it’ll take a Clinton to clean up the mess again.” Applause. Smiles. Laughter. Next question.

That’s how it works. Clintons make a living cleaning up after people from Texas.