The Once And Future Hillary Clinton

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If Bill Clinton's predicament has but one historical precedent, Andrew Johnson's, Hillary Rodham Clinton's current position has none. After surviving the most painful year one could imagine, Hillary has begun to do something no other First Lady--not the second Mrs. Wilson, not Nancy Reagan, not even Eleanor Roosevelt--ever did: create a political base independent of her spouse's. In the new TIME/CNN poll, 70% view her favorably. And her popularity has caused talk, encouraged by New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli, a close White House ally, that she may run for the Senate from New York in 2000. Though her friends call such a run unlikely--Washington, they say, is the last place she'll want to be in 2001--the First Lady's office has so far done nothing to squelch the idea, which seems to be gaining momentum.

The Clinton marriage is famously, ineffably complex. But presidential marriages are almost always about more than matters of the heart. By the time they enter the White House, a presidential couple have generally forged a partnership that is both political and personal. Once there the First Lady has a dual role to play: internal and external. Successful First Ladies must balance them; if one part overwhelms the other, the result can be disastrous. Take the Wilsons--Woodrow and his second wife Edith, whose 1915 courtship and marriage were the stuff of a romantic novel but catastrophic for the country. After Wilson was felled by a massive stroke in 1919, Edith kept him in office as a form of therapy--she thought a resignation would quicken his death--concealing the truth from the world. Half-paralyzed and nearly blind, Wilson became more rigid in a way that would affect history, refusing to compromise in order to gain Senate approval for American membership in his own creation, the League of Nations. Edith Wilson pulled off a masterful charade for the benefit of Congress and the country, becoming in the process what some called the "28th and a half" President. She skillfully arranged an early version of a photo op for a congressional delegation, propping up her inert, bedridden husband with pillows in a darkened sickroom. It was all to convince the public that the President was still in charge. Although she acted out of love, she damaged both the country and Wilson's legacy. "Woodrow Wilson was first my beloved husband whose life I was trying to save," she said with pride of what she called her stewardship; "after that he was the President of the United States." Theirs was a White House union based entirely--and tragically--on matters of the heart.

The Roosevelts represent the opposite pole. Their marriage had perhaps not enough heart. Eleanor was the "eyes and ears" of her wheelchair-bound husband, his pipeline to African Americans, Jews and other disfranchised people. Her middle-aged, maternal image gave the New Deal its most compassionate face. In 1940, F.D.R. dispatched Eleanor to the Democratic Convention to quell a revolt against his choice of political outsider Henry Wallace as running mate. "This," she told the convention, "is no ordinary time," and the force of her presence ended the crisis.