Hillary Clinton Exits Politics: Her Enduring Legacy
Feb 5, 2013 12:00 AM EST
She changed the game irrevocably, and now she’s about to transform it again—by walking away.
And now, as of this week, Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes something she has not been in two decades: a private citizen. A mind-boggling thought, really, rich in amusingly prosaic implications. Will she drive a car? Is she going to pop up at the Safeway (you’re supposed to bring your own bags now, Madame Secretary!) or be found standing in line at the Friendship Heights multiplex? She’ll still have Secret Service protection, and she has more than enough money to send other people out on a CVS run. But even so, she is now, for the first time in a very, very long time, just one of us.
The images amuse because, of course, she’s not just one of us. She’s been the most famous and admired woman in America for 20 years. A December Gallup poll had her as the most admired woman in the world, and No. 2 on the list (Michelle Obama) wasn’t remotely close. Not everyone is in on this love-fest, as we well know, by a long shot. But even the seething hatred has, over the years, embroidered her legend—debates about Clinton have somehow always ended up really being about us as a nation, who we are and who we want to be, in such a way that even those who dislike her are implicitly acknowledging that, yes, she is the touchstone.
She’s the most important woman in America. More: she is almost certainly the most important woman in all of our political history. Already, even if this retirement proves to be permanent, which few people think it will be. No? Well, who, then? Who has been first lady, senator, secretary of state? No other woman, that’s for sure. Not many men have held as many high-profile jobs and performed them as well.
And on top of the jobs themselves—in a way, far harder than the jobs themselves—was having to be that barrier breaker, having to be The Woman; the little daughter of a starchy Republican drapery-peddler who would cash in her Goldwater chips and whom fate would eventually select to embody liberation and insolence and cultural transformation, transformation that millions of Americans embraced but that a different set of millions found ruinous, repulsive; having to carry all that on her shoulders, year after year after year, watching people call her all kinds of names and accuse her of all manner of treachery (up to and including criminal behavior and sympathy with terrorists), all that on top of just the normal run-of-the-mill sexism, and knowing that she had to stay above it all and smile, smile, smile, and never take the bait? An impossible job. Who else has had to do all that?
Read more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/02/04/hillary-clinton-exits-politics-her-enduring-legacy.html
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As anyone who lives in Chappaqua can attest. They routinely shop at the local stores and eat at the restaurants. They also go to the movies and love to walk around Manhattan. Bill is seen regularly going for coffee while walking Tally and Seamus. Considering that they are one of the most famous couples in the world, they are pretty down to earth.
As for Hillary's legacy, she's not done yet, not by far.
Edited to add this tidbit:
He orders a decaf venti at Starbucks (and always tips) and stops in at Lange’s Little Store and Delicatessen and chats with everyone there. When Mrs. Clinton is around, they go to movies at the Jacob Burns Film Center in neighboring Pleasantville and are reliable diners at local restaurants like Le Jardin du Roi, Crabtree’s Kittle House and the Chappaqua Restaurant and Cafe, where they were mortified a month ago when a customer picked up their check.
Their chocolate Labrador retriever, Seamus, and toy poodle, Tally, are both groomed at Wags and Whiskers. The Clintons are both groomed at Santa’s Salon and Spa.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/nyregion/as-new-phase-looms-for-clintons-chappaqua-ny-ponders-future-of-great-neighbors.html?_r=0
