The next day, I gave the same message to a few hundred black ministers and other activists at the Reverend Odell Jones’s Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in inner-city Detroit. I told the black audience, many of whom had Arkansas roots, that I had challenged the white voters in Macomb County to reach across the racial divide, and now I was challenging them to do the same, by accepting the responsibility part of my agenda, including welfare reform, tough child-support enforcement, and anti-crime efforts that would promote the values of work, family, and safety in their neighborhoods. The twin speeches got quite a bit of attention, because it was unusual for a politician to challenge Macomb County whites on race or inner-city blacks on welfare and crime. When both groups responded strongly to the same message, I wasn’t surprised. In their heart of hearts, most Americans know that the best social program is a job, that the strongest social institution is the family, and that the politics of racial division are selfdefeating. In Illinois, I visited a sausage factory with black, Hispanic, and Eastern European immigrant employees to highlight the company’s commitment to giving all employees who hadn’t finished high school access to a GED program. I met a new citizen from Romania who said he would cast his first vote for me. I worked in the black and Hispanic communities with two young activists, Bobby Rush and Luis Gutierrez, both of whom would later be elected to Congress. I toured an energy-efficient housing project with a young Hispanic community leader, Danny Solis, whose sister Patti went to work for Hillary in the campaign and has been with her ever since. And I marched in Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, to the cheers of supporters and jeers of opponents, both enhanced by the beer that was in ample supply at bars along the parade route.
Two days before the election, I debated Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown on television in Chicago. They knew it was make-or-break time, and they went after me. Brown grabbed the spotlight with a harsh attack on Hillary, saying that I had steered state business to the Rose firm to increase her income and that a poultry company her firm represented got special treatment from the Department of Pollution Control and Ecology because of her. The charges were ridiculous and the vehemence with which Jerry made them angered me. I explained the facts, as I had done when Frank White attacked Hillary’s law practice in the 1986 governor’s race. The Rose firm had represented the State of Arkansas in the bond business since 1948. It represented the state against the utilities that wanted Arkansas to pay for the Grand Gulf nuclear plant. Hillary had all legal fees paid by the state deleted from the firm’s income before her partnership share was calculated, so she didn’t receive any benefit from them, as even rudimentary research would have shown. Moreover, there was no evidence that the Rose firm’s clients secured special favors from any state agency. I shouldn’t have lost my temper, but the charges were plainly baseless. Subconsciously, I suppose I also felt guilty that Hillary had been forced to defend me so much, and I was glad to be able to rise to her defense.
Everyone who knew her knew she was scrupulously honest, but not everyone knew her, and the attacks hurt. On the morning after the debate, we were shaking hands at the Busy Bee Coffee Shop in Chicago when a reporter asked her what she thought of Brown’s charges. She gave a good answer about trying to have both a career and a family life. The reporter then asked if she could have avoided the appearance of a conflict. Of course, that’s exactly what she did and what she should have said. But she was tired and stressed. Instead, she said, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life. And I’ve worked very, very hard to be as careful as possible, and that’s all I can tell you.”
The press picked up the “tea and cookies” remark and played it as a slam on stay-at-home mothers. The Republican culture warriors had a field day, portraying Hillary as a “militant feminist lawyer” who would be the ideological leader of a “Clinton-Clinton administration” that would push a “radical feminist” agenda. I hurt for her. Over the years, I don’t know how many times I’d heard her champion the importance of ensuring choices for women, including the choice to stay home with their children, a decision most mothers, single and married, simply couldn’t afford anymore. Also, I knew she liked to bake cookies and have her women friends for tea. With one off-the-cuff remark, she had given our opponents another weapon to do what they did best—divide and distract the voters. It was all forgotten the next day when we won in Illinois, Hillary’s home state, with 52 percent to 25
