The Long Road
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Even before Clinton announced his candidacy on Oct. 3, 1991, parts of the national press were hailing him as a potential campaigner who knew exactly what he wanted to say and had a plan. Eager to impose a pattern on what then seemed a shapeless race, some political reporters even began building up Clinton as potential chief rival to New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who was then expected to be the front runner. Some of Clinton's aides wanted to launch a pre-emptive attack on Cuomo as the kind of ultraliberal who always lost, but the Arkansan vetoed the idea: the Hamlet of Albany might yet drop out, and there was no point in saying anything that might rile him enough to make him want to fight. When Cuomo did decide just before Christmas to stay out, the press was stuck with anointing Clinton as the new front runner more or less by default.
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THE SURVIVOR
It nearly all came unglued in New Hampshire, though. When Gennifer Flowers' charges that she had had a 12-year affair with Clinton became public, the Governor ordered his entire staff to gather in Manchester immediately. They turned the local Days Inn into a kind of makeshift dorm. Staffers doubled up in rooms and stuffed towels in the doors so that they would not lock; any room could be opened for an impromptu meeting at any time. Aides quickly began negotiating for TV time to answer the charges. Clinton and Hillary went on 60 Minutes and in effect repeated their Sperling breakfast performance. One incident that did not get onscreen: while the interview was being filmed, a bank of lights held high on a pipe came crashing to the floor about a foot from Hillary. Clinton immediately grabbed his wife and pulled her to him; they ^ embraced for about 30 seconds. The incident seemed to break the tension; both were more relaxed and confident afterward. The campaign had also lined up an interview spot on Nightline, which had been kept on hold until a spot on 60 Minutes was assured. Deciding it would be preferable not to dispatch a white man to defend Clinton, aides instead sent Mandy Grunwald, who was relatively new to the campaign but did a poised and impressive job.
Just as the campaigners were congratulating themselves on surviving that flap, though, the first stories about how he had stayed out of the draft in 1969 hit. On Feb. 12 Clinton suddenly called a press conference in a hangar at the Manchester airport and handed out a faded Xerox copy of the now famous letter written by the young Clinton expressing his agony over the Vietnam War. Someone had leaked the original to Nightline; Clintonites had been able to get hold only of the one faxed copy, which was hard to read in the dim light of the hangar. Carville had argued vehemently that the campaign had to make the letter public before Nightline did. "Guvnor," Carville insisted in his Cajun accent, "this letter is your friend."
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