Read Online Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine by Daniel Halper - Free Book Online
Authors: Daniel Halper
Tags: nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Retail, Presidents & Heads of State, Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton
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public office. The Clinton-Schumer tension had been the subject of rumors and speculation for years. “Chuck Schumer hatched secret plan to get Obama to run,” a New York Post headline blared in 2010. 26 A book at the time described the senator’s efforts to “betray” his colleague by recruiting Obama for the White House. “Schumer and the others were concerned about Clinton’s political vulnerabilities,” the book argued, according to the Post . 27
But what was not well known is that the tensions between the two went back even further than the 2008 race. Schumer had served with Lazio in the House of Representatives and, as members of the same state delegation, they knew each other well. Schumer took an unexpected interest in Lazio’s Senate campaign from the outset, finding opportunities to chat with the Republican on shuttle flights to Washington or when they encountered each other on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. Schumer would offer Lazio unsolicited advice.
“I thought he was generally . . . he was supportive,” Lazio recalls. “Quite helpful to me behind the scenes and encouraging. I just would say that it was clear to me anyway that he would not have been disappointed if I had been elected.”
Pressed as to whether Schumer actually devised lines of attack against Clinton, Lazio demurs. “I don’t really want to get into that or answer that question,” he says. “I think I would just say he was generally supportive and, in my informal discussions, encouraging.”
The revelation of Schumer’s role makes sense to longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. “Look, if you were the other senator from New York and she was in the Senate, you just sort of have to resign yourself to the fact that, you know, you might be called the senior senator, but in a way you weren’t,” he says.
What is more puzzling is that Schumer’s offensive against Clinton continued even after she was elected. He was known to leak damaging information about his Senate colleague to the Rupert Murdoch–owned New York Post . Most likely this was done as much to ingratiate himself to the influential tabloid as it was to undermine Hillary. But the continued Schumer-Clinton rivalry underscored an interesting aspect of Hillary Clinton’s Senate career—and potential second run for the White House. Like her husband in his postpresidential life, she tended to have more of a knack for building bridges with her enemies than she did with her friends.
Soon after Hillary Clinton beat Rick Lazio to win the Senate seat in 2000, Lazio remembers finding himself in the Oval Office with her husband, President Bill Clinton. The president was then a lame duck—he was finishing his tumultuous second term and getting ready to transition from being the commander in chief to life as a political spouse, now that his wife was going to be the junior senator from New York and he was going to be an officially unemployed husband in a foreign state.
The meeting wasn’t awkward, though, as one might expect when the political loser comes face to face with the spouse of his opponent who just beat him. It was quite the opposite: friendly and fun. They were sharing jokes.
Lazio was there because the president, finally, was going to sign a couple of bills that he had held until after Lazio’s election against his wife. Lazio thought the timing was suspicious. “They wanted to deny me that photo-op,” Lazio remembers thinking, over a decade later in an interview, until after the election.
One of the bills he remembers being in there to speak about was regarding breast cancer treatment or perhaps it was the environmental bill they were to celebrate.
Either way, Lazio thinks, Clinton had performed his duty as husband—by denying Lazio the image of being the moderate Republican able to work with the Democratic president. And now that that duty had expired, Clinton was performing the next duty: signing the bills that Congress passed into law.
But
But what was not well known is that the tensions between the two went back even further than the 2008 race. Schumer had served with Lazio in the House of Representatives and, as members of the same state delegation, they knew each other well. Schumer took an unexpected interest in Lazio’s Senate campaign from the outset, finding opportunities to chat with the Republican on shuttle flights to Washington or when they encountered each other on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. Schumer would offer Lazio unsolicited advice.
“I thought he was generally . . . he was supportive,” Lazio recalls. “Quite helpful to me behind the scenes and encouraging. I just would say that it was clear to me anyway that he would not have been disappointed if I had been elected.”
Pressed as to whether Schumer actually devised lines of attack against Clinton, Lazio demurs. “I don’t really want to get into that or answer that question,” he says. “I think I would just say he was generally supportive and, in my informal discussions, encouraging.”
The revelation of Schumer’s role makes sense to longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. “Look, if you were the other senator from New York and she was in the Senate, you just sort of have to resign yourself to the fact that, you know, you might be called the senior senator, but in a way you weren’t,” he says.
What is more puzzling is that Schumer’s offensive against Clinton continued even after she was elected. He was known to leak damaging information about his Senate colleague to the Rupert Murdoch–owned New York Post . Most likely this was done as much to ingratiate himself to the influential tabloid as it was to undermine Hillary. But the continued Schumer-Clinton rivalry underscored an interesting aspect of Hillary Clinton’s Senate career—and potential second run for the White House. Like her husband in his postpresidential life, she tended to have more of a knack for building bridges with her enemies than she did with her friends.
Soon after Hillary Clinton beat Rick Lazio to win the Senate seat in 2000, Lazio remembers finding himself in the Oval Office with her husband, President Bill Clinton. The president was then a lame duck—he was finishing his tumultuous second term and getting ready to transition from being the commander in chief to life as a political spouse, now that his wife was going to be the junior senator from New York and he was going to be an officially unemployed husband in a foreign state.
The meeting wasn’t awkward, though, as one might expect when the political loser comes face to face with the spouse of his opponent who just beat him. It was quite the opposite: friendly and fun. They were sharing jokes.
Lazio was there because the president, finally, was going to sign a couple of bills that he had held until after Lazio’s election against his wife. Lazio thought the timing was suspicious. “They wanted to deny me that photo-op,” Lazio remembers thinking, over a decade later in an interview, until after the election.
One of the bills he remembers being in there to speak about was regarding breast cancer treatment or perhaps it was the environmental bill they were to celebrate.
Either way, Lazio thinks, Clinton had performed his duty as husband—by denying Lazio the image of being the moderate Republican able to work with the Democratic president. And now that that duty had expired, Clinton was performing the next duty: signing the bills that Congress passed into law.
But
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