Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas (26 page)
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Authors: Edward Klein
“Chelsea is positioned to take over the foundation when Bill can no longer run it day to day,” said one of Hillary’s closest friends. “He’s been taking care of himself and seems pretty strong now, but he has problems with his heart.
“Chelsea will also play a big role in Hillary’s campaign,” this friend continued. “With her dad’s guidance, she is almost certainly going to be in daily control. She knows the family business in and out. She’s become a wizard at politics, because she’s been an apt pupil and loves the nitty-gritty of it.
“Someday she may run for office herself, probably for a House seat from Manhattan. But Bill and Hillary are torn over that. They’d be thrilled to see her in office. But Hillary says politics is rough for a woman, and that you’re treated harsher than a man in many ways.”
In recent years, an invitation to Whitehaven had become a very big deal.
“Hillary has carved out a place for herself in Washington’s political society that people compare to the heyday of Pamela Harriman and Katharine Graham,” said a friend who attended many of Hillary’s parties. “The house easily holds a hundred-plus people, and when the Clintons throw up a party tent on the landscaped grounds, many, many more.
“Hillary has cocktail parties at Whitehaven several times a week, and they are always the talk of D.C.,” this friend continued.
“She presides over the most sought after salon in the capital. There was a time when the Clintons were dismissed as hayseeds, like the Carters, but no longer. She spares no expense with her parties. The finest French champagne and liquor is served, and some of the best restaurants in the city cater the food. The menu is always a surprise and always stunning.
“Chelsea is almost always her co-host, more so than Bill, who is often traveling, or in his office in New York, or at the library in Little Rock. Chelsea has a bedroom and den in the house, and she spends a great deal of her time there. It is a way for Hillary to transfer her cachet, power, and contacts to her daughter, whom she has already anointed as her heir apparent.
“A photographer always roams the rooms documenting the events, picturing the Clintons with luminaries from around the country and the world. When they bought Whitehaven, it was meant to be a White House in exile, and that’s what it’s become. Make no mistake, though: Whitehaven is Hillary’s show—Hillary and Chelsea’s—not Bill’s. He’s an attraction when he visits. But Hillary is running things. The baton has been passed in every way.”
Chelsea was keenly attuned to her father’s ever-shifting moods, and toward the end of the afternoon gathering she noticed a troubled look lurking beneath Bill’s party smile.
“It’s a hangover from the dinner we had with the Obamas,” her mother explained. “Your father’s pissed. He’s convinced Obama’s going to support Joe [Biden].”
Bill was nearby and overheard Hillary’s explanation, as did a party guest who provided the author with a reconstruction of their conversation.
“That White House dinner was botched,” Bill told Chelsea. “It was awkward, and Obama was graceless. I assumed he invited us so I could give him some advice on his second term, but he didn’t ask me one goddamn question. The dinner may have been part of his charm offensive, but I thought his lack of charm was offensive.”
Chelsea laughed at her father’s play on words. Then she asked: “Is Obama really going to endorse Biden?”
“It’s going to be a dogfight,” replied Bill, who had already begun assembling opposition research on Biden. “I’m absolutely convinced that the Obamas have no intention of supporting your mother. It could be they’ll get behind [John] Kerry or Biden. But, you know, we’re smarter than Biden and the rest of them. If old Joe comes at us, we’ll clean the floor with him.”
Hillary nodded in agreement.
“Recently, I’ve heard a different scenario from state committeemen about Obama’s preference in ’16,” Bill continued. “They say he’s looking around for a candidate who’s just like him. Someone relatively unknown. Someone with a fresh face. He’s convinced himself that he’s been a brilliant president, and he wants to clone himself—to find his Mini-Me. He’s hunting for someone to succeed him, and he believes the American people don’t want to vote for someone who’s been around for a long time. He thinks that your mother and I are what he calls ‘so twentieth century.’ He’s looking for another Barack Obama.”
I
t was early in April, and Park Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side was awash with tulips—seventy thousand tall, blood-red tulips running along the median strip for as far as the eye could see. At noontime a convoy of black SUVs pulled up in front of the green awning at 888 Park Avenue, and Bill and Hillary Clinton stepped out. Flanked by their Secret Service details, they were escorted through the building’s majestic lobby to a wood-paneled elevator and carried up to an apartment occupied by a woman who was at least as famous as they were—Caroline Bouvier Kennedy.
Caroline greeted them at the door. She was dressed casually and had not bothered to do much with her makeup or her hair. A stranger would never have guessed that she was one of the richest women in America, with a fortune estimated at $500 million. Like
her mother, Jackie, she had a thin, athletic body, but as many people had noted, her sharp features and toothy expression made her look more Kennedy than Bouvier.
Her voice was flat and uninflected as she ushered the Clintons through her book-lined apartment, with its worn, slipcovered sofas, to the dining room, where three places were set for luncheon. There was no place setting for her husband, Ed Schlossberg, a designer of interactive media, who had been married to Caroline for twenty-seven years and now lived a life quite separate from hers.
“Congratulations are in order,” Bill Clinton said as he took a seat.
He was referring to recent newspaper stories that President Obama intended to name Caroline to the prestigious post of ambassador to Japan. Caroline’s predecessors in that job included former Senate majority leaders Mike Mansfield and Howard Baker; former vice president Walter Mondale; and former House Speaker Tom Foley. Although Caroline didn’t have the foreign policy credentials of these political heavyweights, and her knowledge of Japan was, to put it mildly, thin, her appointment fit a long tradition of presidents’ rewarding major campaign backers with plum diplomatic assignments.
Along with her late uncle, Ted Kennedy, Caroline had been a supercharged supporter of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. The Clintons had been shattered by Ted’s and Caroline’s endorsements of Obama during the primary race, but they had been careful not to show their pique and had remained on warm terms with Caroline and the rest of the Kennedy clan. As for Obama, he had been his usual aloof and unappreciative self: for several years, he
all but ignored Caroline and, until now, had never offered a job to the woman who had helped put him in the White House.
“She was very disappointed at not being offered something by Obama in his first term,” said the wife of one of Caroline’s cousins. “She was pissed, but she didn’t want to let the Obamas know it. She thought it would eventually occur to them that they should offer her something substantial. When that didn’t happen, she engaged in a quiet lobbying effort, and a number of people friendly to Caroline and the Kennedy family dropped hints at the White House.
“Finally, Japan opened up,” this woman continued. “Her appointment caused some amusement among her cousins in Hyannis Port. It’s obvious to the Kennedys that the Obamas and the Clintons are engaged in a power struggle for the future of the Democratic Party, as well as the future of the country, and that lately both of them have been courting Caroline. Bill has come to Boston and the Cape and made it clear that he wants the Kennedy family’s united support for Hillary. And Obama has recently dropped hints through his allies that he wants the family to stay in his camp and not back Hillary in 2016. That’s one reason, in the family’s opinion, Obama decided to appoint Caroline to the Japan job. If Caroline’s on the other side of the world in Japan, she isn’t going to be able to use her influence and money for Hillary.”
“I’ve been going up to Columbia University and talking to some old Japan hands,” Caroline told the Clintons over lunch,
according to Hillary’s recollection of their conversation, which she passed on to a friend. “I’m trying to learn to speak the language, and I’m assembling a group of experts to advise me. Now that my children [Rose, twenty-five; Tatiana, twenty-three; and John, twenty-one] are grown, I was looking for a major challenge, and this is it. Everybody in the Kennedy family has been supportive. They’re thrilled to have another ambassador in the family.”
Caroline’s allusion to the founding father of the Kennedy clan—Joseph P. Kennedy, who was ambassador to Great Britain from 1938 to 1940—gave Bill Clinton an opening to praise the Kennedys for their decades of public service. He reminded Caroline that it was JFK, her father, who had inspired him to enter politics. And he recounted amusing tales of his visits with Ted at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port.
This led to a discussion of the Clintons’ desire to create their own version of a family compound—a place for them and (they hoped) their future grandchildren to gather on holidays and special occasions. Hillary mentioned her favorite summer resort, the Hamptons, on the East End of Long Island.
“I used to own a home there,” Caroline said.
“We’re thinking of buying a home there ourselves, but the real estate prices are outrageous,” said Hillary, neglecting to mention that Bill had earned $125 million, mostly from speeches, since he left the White House.
“Family is important,” Bill said. “We hope we can count on the Kennedy family to support Hillary the next time around.”
Caroline nodded, indicating that she would give serious consideration to Bill’s request. (In April 2014, she announced that she would “absolutely” support Hillary if she decided to run in
2016.) Then she quickly moved the topic to the workings of the State Department. She wanted to know from Hillary, the former secretary of state, what she could expect when she took up her post in Tokyo.
“Don’t expect to get your real marching orders from State,” Hillary responded. “The way the Obama government works, everything important in foreign policy comes from the White House. And Valerie [Jarrett] pretty much runs the show down there. You’ll feel Valerie breathing down your neck all the way to Tokyo. She’s going to have a lot to say about how you represent our country in Japan, and believe me, she won’t be shy about it.”
Caroline looked stunned.
S
hortly after the long Fourth of July weekend in 2013, Hillary made a rare pilgrimage to Little Rock to dedicate a public library named in her honor. More than 1,200 days remained before the 2016 election, but a number of prominent individuals (among them, New York’s senior senator, Chuck Schumer) and several well-financed grassroots organizations (including a super PAC named Ready for Hillary) had already endorsed Hillary for president.