At the risk of being excoriated by the Bernie echo-chamber here as a “neo-liberal corporatist warmonger” i want to draw people’s attention to a positive Hillary piece in the news today that zeroes in on some of those leadership qualities that will make her a terrific president. The Boston Globe today has republished a 1993 article on Hillary’s time at Wellesley in which a number of classmates, friends and faculty members were interviewed. Hillary was recalled by everyone as a natural leader, but what stood out — and this is a recurring theme in the piece — is her pragmatic approach to everything she tackled:
“They knew her as disciplined and intensely focused; as a woman who was more cerebral than emotional, who was not given to frivolous chatter about boyfriends or weekend plans. It was true, they knew, that she could be pointed, even impatient, but these bright young women also knew her as one of the more facile minds on campus, as a person who had never lacked for self- esteem. [...]
And they knew her as a pragmatic leader who seemingly got along with everybody, shunning extremism for moderation and communicating well with the faculty and administration, with disparate student groups from social clubs to Students for a Democratic Society.”
Hillary’s years at Wellesley coincided with years of intense change for America, and the college — and Hilary Rodham — underwent political change as well. Hillary went from leading the campus Young Republicans to volunteering for Eugene McCarthy’s campaign in New Hampshire.
But during the years that Rodham’s class would spend on campus, Wellesley would change -- with Rodham as a key player in the process -- more than it had in decades. The world would change, too, as a women’s movement with profound implications for Rodham and her classmates would erupt.
“We were really on the cusp,” recalls Betty Demy Hutcheon, a classmate. ‘‘We were in that pivotal place between the old way and the new way. We were trailblazers.”
Of course, the Republican Party back in the late 1960’s was also light-years from the white nationalist party it has morphed into today. Massachusetts had just elected the first black representative — Ed Brooke, a liberal Republican — to the US Senate.
On campus, Hillary excelled at working the system, building consensus, to effect real change. And she achieved results:
She did not shun the committee drudgery through which change was made, but embraced it, working on campus issues large and small. She pushed for a pass- fail grading option. She worked on a better system for returning library books. She supported increasing the number of black students and faculty members. She worked on changing parietal hours, and on reducing the number of required courses. She pushed for a summer Upward Bound program for inner-city kids on the Wellesley campus.
The best part of the Boston Globe piece is actually the opening paragraphs that describe Hillary Rodham’s commencement address which followed Senator Ed Brooke’s speech to the Wellesley graduating classs:
When she rose to the platform and said she wanted to respond to some of Brooke’s points, there was a palpable stiffening among parents. Undaunted, Hillary Rodham proceeded, in a performance her classmates say they will never forget, to deliver an extemporaneous rebuttal of Brooke. It was not so much her words -- for they seem mild in retrospect -- as it was the fact that in 1969 she dared to challenge a sitting United States senator.
“We feel that for too long our leaders have used politics as the art of the possible,” she said. “And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.”
Looking back on their time at Wellesley and their,some of the interviewees in 1993 had this to say about their classmate:
“A lot of us thought Hillary would be the first woman president,” says Karen Williamson. “I thought if ever in my lifetime there is a woman president it would be her.”