She Who Laughs...

Washington Memo She Who Laughs ...

That sound you hear is the zeitgeist shifting on Hillary Clinton. It's not just the laugh--those loud and (at times) staged bursts of mirth that have become late-night fodder. It's the backlash against her inevitability, the desire for a real contest throwing itself against the mighty tide of her latest fund-raising and polling triumphs: $22 million to Barack Obama's $19 million in the third quarter, and a shocking 53%-to-20% lead among Democrats in a new ABC/Washington Post poll. You can feel it coming: a major media assault on her style. And whether you like it or not, style is an important question in presidential politics, as long as it doesn't exclude substance and lead to the sort of trivial henpecking that so many people rightfully hate. On Hillary, the question is what's legit and what's not.

Yes, the laugh can be awkward, and yes, her campaign is focus-grouped to death. But then, so are the campaigns of all the other candidates flush enough to hire political consultants. The style question would be far more serious if Clinton were appreciably more cautious in policy terms than her fellow candidates, but she isn't. Her health-care plan, while late, is considered by some to be the best submitted this year. Her position on Iraq is solid, responsible and not much different from most of her opponents'.

Clinton's caution is more noticeable because of the cool, bionic quality of her public persona. But perhaps her seriousness and practicality--the sense that she knows what she's doing--will work to her advantage and may even overcome the perennial TV-age desire for a warm or charming candidate. What works against her is the sense that she comes not only with Bill attached but also with a permanent carnival: all the screaming from the right and from those in the media obsessed with the Clinton-family follies. After 16 years, the public may be tired of an always embattled presidency.