THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 29, 1996 TAG: 9608290586
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: 81 lines
The issue here among beauty parlor operators is that Hillary Clinton, several say, has had 42 hairstyles as first lady.
That astonished me. To my untutored eye, Mrs. Clinton has looked the same through all 42. Maybe it's male obtusity that to me she never has changed, not by a hair.
Her critics must have degrees in psychoanalysis because, as one observed: ``She should have one hair stylist to tell her who she is.'' It is as if Mrs. Clinton's multiple hairdos denote multiple personalities.
If there is anyone who knows who she is and where she is going, it is Hillary Clinton. She, above all, does NOT have an identity crisis. The only other political wife as self-assured is Elizabeth Dole. The question among many is which did better in speeches, Dole in San Diego or Clinton in Chicago. It seemed to some a duel. If so, it was a draw.
Each followed Shakespeare's advice, ``To thine own self be true . . .''
Liddy Dole faced a formidable challenge. She couldn't just babble along about Bob Dole, ``the man I love.'' Such wifely discourse would be dismissed as biased.
Nor could she interview a half-dozen persons who would have hemmed and hawed and ughed. The time didn't permit it.
So she pioneered by strolling around the convention floor and, as each person arose, she both asked and answered questions.
The idea must have seemed audacious at first, but she made it work. She made it sound informal, spontaneous. It was a tour de force.
Given time, Mrs. Dole apparently can do just about any task with grace and style. The mere mention of such a production would have demoralized most of us. In an insightful profile in September's Vanity Fair, Gail Sheehy writes that being thrown into an unexpected situation is uncomfortable for anyone, and for Mrs. Dole, who always overprepares, it is torment.
``And when that happens,'' she told Sheehy, ``I call it churning.''
In the White House, Hillary Clinton lives in a churn. Yet, publicly anyway, she remains as calm as the eye of a storm.
The day before she was to testify three hours before a grand jury, she spent all day campaigning. I'd have spent the day in bed with my head under the covers.
The pressure on her to measure up to Liddy Dole's performance was exacting. Democrats in the audience feared for her as parents do for a child about to get up and recite the first time.
She ignored a suggestion that she enter the arena with a swarm of children. She looked level in the eye of the camera and told of her concerns in these perilous times for her child and all children.
``The day Chelsea was born,'' she said, ``not only did I have lots of help, I was able to stay in the hospital as long as my doctor thought I should be there.
``But today too many new mothers are asked to get up and get out after 24 hours. And that is just not enough time for many new mothers.'' The crowd roared. ``That's why the president is right to support a bill to prohibit the practice of forcing mothers and babies to leave the hospital in less than 48 hours.''
She continued addressing the worries of parents with possible solutions. ``It takes a family,'' she said. ``It takes teachers. It takes clergy. It takes business people. It takes community leaders. It takes those who protect our health and safety. It takes all of us.''
Then she added, ``Yes, it takes a village!'' That reference to the title of her child-rearing book, which Bob Dole ridiculed as smacking of big government, drew cheers from the audience. And it heightened when she said, ``and it takes a president!''
``One who believes not only in the potential of his own child, but of all children, who believes not only in the strength of his own family, but in the American family, who believes not only in the promise of each of us as individuals, but in our promise together as a nation.''
And then, still hammering the phrase, she said, ``It takes a president who not only holds these beliefs, but acts on them. It takes Bill Clinton!''
In Virginia politics, a rule advises: Never criticize in a personal way your opponent's wife.
It's one Bob Dole's not likely to forget. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Elizabeth Dole by CNB