The complete title for Ezra’s latest piece is Understanding Hillary: The Clinton America sees isn’t the Clinton colleagues know. Why are they so different? The quality Ezra finds is one that defines Hillary Clinton to her coworkers; she listens.
This is an effort to answer a question Ive been struggling with since at least 2008: Why is the Hillary Clinton described to me by her staff, her colleagues, and even her foes so different from the one I see on the campaign trail?
Ive come to call it the Gap. There is the Hillary Clinton I watch on the nightly news and that I read described in the press. She is careful, calculated, cautious. Her speeches can sound like executive summaries from a committee report, the product of too many authors, too many voices, and too much fear of offense…
And then there is the Hillary Clinton described to me by people who have worked with her, people I admire, people who understand Washington in ways I never will. Their Hillary Clinton is spoken of in superlatives: brilliant, funny, thoughtful, effective. She inspires a rare loyalty in ex-staff, and an unusual protectiveness even among former foes…
The answers startled me in their consistency. Every single person brought up, in some way or another, the exact same quality they feel leads Clinton to excel in governance and struggle in campaigns. On the one hand, that makes my job as a reporter easy. There actually is an answer to the question. On the other hand, it makes my job as a writer harder: It isnt a very satisfying answer to the question, at least not when you first hear it.
Hillary Clinton, they said over and over again, listens.