Hillary as Zelig (Ronald Goldfarb)

As the long Democratic primary season plays out, Hillary Clinton has portrayed herself in so many roles that a psychiatrist specializing in split personalities could fill a textbook with her various identities. She has become Zelig, the Woody Allen character who appears in every guise and historical context.

We were introduced to Hillary as the precocious college kid from the Chicago suburbs who grabbed her first headline in Massachusetts at her graduation ceremony, which was supposed to be honoring the first black United States senator in modern history, Edward Brooke. Interesting coincidence?

Then she was the reluctant Arkansas first lady who begrudgingly went to the Razorback State following her man, a pattern that she has pursued in life. After many awkward years — now thoroughly investigated — soooo-ing and suing in Arkansas, she became the nation’s first lady. Eschewing cookie-baking, she became the traveling woman of the world, even dodging bullets in foreign countries like Superwoman.

When she became a senator from New York, wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap seemed strange. She may know the new president of Russia, but I do not think she knows who Georgie Stirnweiss or Tommie Hendrick was. It was the prop to show she was then a New Yorker, not an Arkansan or Illinoisan. As someone who worked on RFK’s campaign for the Senate in New York, I suppose I shouldn’t comment on that political adoption. But Hillary noshing pastrami at the Stage Deli or at a Knicks game sitting next to Spike Lee just doesn’t ring true.

Her presidential run has seen Hillary in so many costume changes she could be doing small-town summer stock. There was the tough Hillary and the teary one. The “I’m-proud-to-be-near-you” Hillary and the “You’re-not-fit-to-lead” Hillary. She was a hunter in Wisconsin; Paul Revere in Massachusetts; she was Rocky in Philly; as a child, she played pinochle with her family in Scranton, another home town; she dropped her G’s in recalling her campaign efforts years ago for Sen. McGovern living in Texas (not a memorable political season). No doubt Hillary Zelig will unravel her personal chili recipe in North Carolina and find some old photos of her rodeo days in Montana and salmon fishing in Oregon.

The point is: These pseudo connections simply don’t seem real. Rudy Giuliani in a Yankee cap does; Hillary just doesn’t. Her all-things-to all-people poses portray someone who doesn’t seem legitimate in any of them. That’s why we hear her intimates say we don’t know the real Hillary. Question: Does Hillary?

Archived under: Presidential Campaign
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