Review: 'Hillary's Turn' definitive version of N.Y. race

In this story: Listening tours Face time and goodwill How she won RELATED STORIES, SITES

"Hillary's Turn"
By Michael Tomasky
The Free Press
Nonfiction/History
320 pages

By Phil Hirschkorn
Special to CNN.com

(CNN) -- In January 1999, behind a cover featuring caricatures of Hillary Clinton and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani outfitted as gladiators, a New York magazine article put forth the possibility of a Senate race between the two.

The article was fuel to a smoldering fire of rumors and trial balloons. Could Hillary run for office while First Lady? In a state where she had never lived? Why would she do it? The article bolstered TV news producers like myself pitching the same story. Within a week CNN aired the first nationally broadcast piece on the possibility of such a campaign.

The influential article was written by Michael Tomasky, the magazine's well-respected political reporter. I mention his article because it modestly receives no mention in his new book, "Hillary's Turn: Inside Her Improbable, Victorious Senate Campaign," a rich and detailed look at the 2000 New York Senate race.

Hillary Clinton managed to embrace the popular policy legacy of the Clinton presidency in her Senate campaign while distancing herself from the personal scandal

It was the most expensive and most-watched Senate race in U.S. history. Hillary did get in; Giuliani, beset by personal troubles, dropped out, and Rick Lazio replaced him. The trio spent more than $80 million combined. And what started as a match of polarizing political heavyweights evolved into a mismatch between a heavyweight and middleweight, with Hillary winning 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent.

Listening tours

Tomasky's book helps counter public misunderstandings about the race. He reminds us that after Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement, New York Democrats came calling on her, not the other way around. The party's most promising names -- such as Robert Kennedy Jr., Comptroller Carl McCall and HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo -- had opted out. As early as 1998, New York State Democratic chair Judith Hope and Congressman Charles Rangel were floating the idea of a Hillary candidacy to the Clintons.

Within two weeks of Tomasky's cover story, with Congress moving toward impeaching her husband, Mrs. Clinton was forced to acknowledge she was in fact contemplating the race. The next time she visited New York, and a half-dozen times after that through the spring, TV crews and reporters from Washington and New York were in tow.

"He wanted to beat Hillary Clinton in an election. But he clearly didn't want to be a U.S. senator," Tomasky writes of Mayor Rudy Giuliani

For 10 months the speculation game wore on as she formed an exploratory committee, embarked on a "listening tour" around the state, and raised money. Finally, on November 23, 1999, just under a year before election day, Hillary's candidacy went from a flirtation to a fact when she uttered, "I intend to run."

But why?

"Surveying her post-White House options," Tomasky writes, Hillary decided "she could do more to advance the causes she believed in as a senator that as a lecturer or as the head of a foundation." The race was winnable, realized Hillary and her advisers (including New York political pro Harold Ickes, son of the FDR confidant): It was for an open seat, there were 2 million more registered Democrats than Republicans, and it was one of her hubsand's best states in '92 and '96. Giuliani appeared vulnerable during the winter of '99 protests over the Amadou Diallo shooting. The run was unprecedented for a First Lady, but not impossible.

Face time and goodwill

Tomasky draws an accurate portrait of Hillary's incessant note taking and nodding during her wonkish listening sessions. While the opposition mocked the trips, Tomasky judges that they won her valuable face time and goodwill, planting the seeds of her winning roughly half the upstate vote, incredibly successful for a Democrat. "Her endless sojourns across the unglamorous plains had paid off," he writes. Her crowds were huge and enthusiastic throughout the campaign.

Tomasky also shrewdly characterizes both Giuliani and Lazio. Giuliani, he notes, loved being mayor and seemed less than committed to seeking another office. After his stunning admissions that he had prostate cancer and that he and his wife were separating, Giuliani quit the contest in May 2000. "He wanted to beat Hillary Clinton in an election. But he clearly didn't want to be a U.S. senator," Tomasky writes.

Tomasky refers to Republican Rick Lazio's Senate campaign as "a sailing ship that couldn't quite catch wind"

Lazio jumped in with polls showing him inheriting 43 to 45 percent of the electorate, essentially the "anti-Hillary vote." "To get the other 6 to 9 percent," Tomasky writes, "he'd need to tell people something about who he was beyond the eternally sunny and humble image of the immigrant's son who now headed the decent middle class Long Island family that kept its own house."

The four-term congressman failed to do that and never articulated a cohesive message beyond his initial salvo -- he was from New York while she wasn't. A series of Lazio missteps, punctuated by his performance during the candidates' first televised debate -- where he invaded Mrs. Clinton's personal space -- doomed his chances. His violation of their ban on outside spending on ads was icing on the cake. As Tomasky puts it, "The Lazio campaign was a sailing ship that couldn't quite catch wind."

How she won

In victory, Hillary accomplished two things Al Gore failed to do. She embraced the popular policy legacy of the Clinton presidency while distancing herself from the personal scandal, which New Yorkers never cared much about. And she defined the senate election as a job interview hinging on who had the best qualifications and experience for a national office. That deflected the carpetbagger question and exploited her stature gap with Lazio. Her refrain, "What I'm for is more important than where I'm from," won the day.

Author Michael Tomasky

One revelation that comes through Tomasky's reporting is that Hillary's campaign organization in New York played second fiddle to the Washington triumvirate of Ickes, media consultant Mandy Grunwald, and pollster Mark Penn. In a bit of intrigue, Tomasky unveils a major behind-the-scenes battle over Hillary's media strategy that pitted Grunwald and Penn against consultant Dwight Jewson, who advocated that Hillary address her negatives. In the end, Grunwald and Penn prevailed, and Hillary stayed silent on the personal unless asked directly by a reporter.

Tomasky's weakness is to ignore the impact of television and radio, besides as venues for campaign ads and debates. Campaign developments are in the papers, as Tomasky recounts it, even when that's not necessarily where the news broke. CNN broke a couple stories Tomasky attributes to the New York Times or talk shows, and the author almost never mentions reports on local broadcast network affiliates or AM radio -- despite their sizable audiences in the nation's number one media market.

However, this book is most fairly judged by what's in it, not by what's not. It would be strengthened by more first-hand chronicles of what happened on the campaign trail. But with its extensive reporting on behind the scenes maneuvers and its rich historical context, Tomasky's book should have shelf life as a most definitive account of the race.

Phil Hirschkorn covered the 2000 New York Senate race for CNN and is a producer based in the New York bureau.

Ethics panel clears Hillary book deal
February 14, 2001
New York Democrats celebrate Hillary's victory
January 8, 2001
Senator-elect Hillary Clinton heads to Capitol Hill
December 5, 2000

New York magazine
The Free Press (Simon & Schuster)
U.S. Senate

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.