I didn’t want to give speeches to explain such a private part of myself. I attended small gatherings at the homes of women supporters in different parts of the state. The host invited about twenty friends and neighbors to have coffee with me. We talked informally, away from the camera lights and political reporters. I answered questions about my marriage, why I moved to New York, health care, child care and whatever else was on their minds. Gradually, many women who were otherwise inclined to support me seemed willing to accept my decision to stay with Bill, even if they would have chosen differently.
My campaign also benefited from what is called a “bump”-a surge of support-after my appearance in January 2000 on The Late Shove with David Letterman. One television appearance on a late-night talk show generated as much or more attention than days’
worth of speeches about the issues. I hadn’t even planned to go on the show, at least not so far in advance of the election. But Letterman regularly called Howard, pleading for me to appear. Each time, Howard put him off, which became a running joke and a nightly staple of Letterman’s opening monologue. After a month of Letterman’s ribbing, I agreed to come on as a guest on January 12.
I hoped it would be fun, but I also knew that late-night comics sometimes skewer their guests, so I was a little nervous. Letterman, who lives near Chappaqua, asked me about our new house and warned me that “every idiot in the area is going to drive by honking now.”
“Oh, was that you?” I said. Letterman and the audience roared, and, after that, I relaxed and had a great time. Some months later I branched out into other comedic venues, performing a deadpan routine as a “carpetbagger” at the annual press dinner in Albany, and later appearing on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show.
In February 2000, I formally declared my candidacy at the State University of New York in Purchase, near our home in Chappaqua. The crowd was filled with jubilant supporters and political leaders from all over the state. Bill, Chelsea and my mother were all there. Senator Moynihan introduced me and told of his visits with Eleanor Roosevelt at her home in Hyde Park. He paid me the ultimate compliment, saying, “Hillary, Eleanor Roosevelt would love you.”
Patti Solis Doyle, the first person I had hired in 1992, coordinated my White House and campaign schedules, and she later took a leave of absence from the government to work fulltime in New York, overseeing logistics and helping to run campaign strategy.
Patti also worked with the fast-growing and influential Latino community, whose enthusiastic support of my campaign delighted me. I was so proud of Patti and the exceptional job she did for me. I often thought back to our first day in the White House, when her Mexican immigrant parents, who had dreamed of a better life for their six children, came to the Inauguration and cried with joy that their daughter was on the staff of the First Lady of the United States.
On the campaign, Patti joined an experienced and talented team led by my campaign manager, Bill de Blasio, who proved to be an outstanding strategist and trusted emissary among the many communities of New York; communications director Howard Wolfson, who ran an extraordinary rapid response operation; political director Ramon Martinez, who shared his sharp political instincts and encouraged me to reach out to new constituencies and “show them some love”; Gigi Georges, who coordinated my campaign with other Democratic candidates in New York and mobilized a genuine grassroots effort; deputy campaign manager for policy Neera Tanden, who had mastered every detail and nuance of the issues facing the state; research director Glen Weiner, who knew more about my opponents than their own staffs probably did; and finance director Gabrielle Fialkoff, who gracefully handled the thankless but critical job of raising the money to make the campaign possible. All of them worked night and day with dozens of other campaign staffers and thousands of volunteers on what became one of the most effective campaigns I have ever seen.
More good news was that Chelsea had taken enough extra courses at Stanford to be able to come home for the first half of her senior year to help her father in the White House and me in New York. She joined our Speedwagon crew to campaign for me whenever she could, which always boosted my spirits. She was a natural on the campaign trail.
I was so proud of the young woman she had become and grateful that she had emerged from eight trying years as a kind, caring person with her head on straight. I am very lucky to be her mother.
For the first months of the campaign, I’d taken most of the heat from the media. Now it was the Mayor’s turn. New Yorkers and the press took note that Giuliani was making little effort, other than fundraising, to win the Senate seat. He ran a campaign that was primarily New York City oriented. He rarely traveled outside his home base, and, when he did, he gave the impression that he would rather be home. He had offered no ideas for dealing with the faltering upstate economy or with racial tensions simmering beneath the surface in New York City. And he began to make mistakes.
A fatal police shooting in New York City in March of a black man named Patrick Dorismond underscored the Mayor’s political vulnerabilities. Giuliani’s handling of this tragic case inflamed old hostilities between his office and the city’s minority populations.
In this situation, the Mayor exacerbated a crisis when a calm and reassuring tone was needed. Citizens in many neighborhoods, especially minority ones, felt that the police under the Mayor’s leadership could not be trusted. Their wariness was fed by well-known cases like the shooting of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx the year before. Police officers, in turn, were legitimately
