A candid conversation with Hillary Clinton

But Courtney Hazlett brought up something interesting. Yesterday, we had Joe Klein on, who said he thought you were doing very well; had a great performance in the debate; said you’ve done a remarkable job as a senator.

And he pointed to the fact that you’ve had the same hairstyle now for six years...

(LAUGHTER)

... which means that you’re comfortable, finally, in your own skin. 

Courtney immediately was offended, said it was misogynistic. Of course, Fox News says you’re wearing bright colors and smiling more.  And that’s helping you.

(LAUGHTER)

HAZLETT:  That’s increasing your likability too.  Exactly.

SCARBOROUGH:  Increasing your likability, of course, which is the same thing that they always said about me.

(LAUGHTER)

Do you think you’re going to have to deal with this throughout the entire campaign?

CLINTON:  I don’t know, Joe.  You know, as I recall, when you went from your congressional career to TV there were a few physical changes.

(LAUGHTER)

SCARBOROUGH:  There were.  There were.

CLINTON:  It is funny, though, because when I think about, you know, the ongoing saga of my hair, which, you know, I have people bring up pictures up to me when I’m traveling around the country and ask me to sign it, and I can tell, it’s like an archaeological dig.

(LAUGHTER)

SCARBOROUGH:  It is.

CLINTON:  But I’m having a great time.  This is a fabulous campaign.

I’m getting just a tremendous response around the country. But I really think that it’s in large measure because people are so anxious to turn the page, you know?

SCARBOROUGH:  Right.

CLINTON:  I don’t know—it doesn’t matter whether you’re Democrats, Republicans, independents or don’t even care about politics, everybody knows that we’ve got to do better, that we’re off course and we need to have a, kind of, sensible center where people come together, roll up our sleeves and say, “Look, we’re better than this.  We can solve these problems.  Let’s get over this whiff of fatalism, you know, we can’t deal with global climate change, we can’t change our economy over time from being so carbon based, you know, we can’t do these things.”

That is not the way I was raised.  I was raised to believe that if we put our minds to it as Americans we could do anything we decided to do.

And we need both new leadership, but we also need everybody, kind of, pulling together...

SCARBOROUGH:  It’s true.

CLINTON:  ... and saying, “OK, what am I going to do as a small business owner, as a homemaker, as a teacher, as a nurse, as a doctor, whatever our particular role in the society and the economy are?”

And so, that’s what I’m finding as I travel around is this real pent-up desire on the part of people to be, you know, involved in helping to chart the course of the country and to be part of something bigger than themselves. 

SCARBOROUGH:  Well, and you know the thing is, we’ve been through so much in the country and a lot of it not good.  We had the Clinton wars, as you know very well, for eight years.  We’re going to have eight years of the Bush wars.  It doesn’t matter who’s to blame, we’ve been—OK, I’ll take part blame for the Clinton wars; ‘95, ‘96 not my best years—but there’s so much division in this country I really do think people are exhausted and they’re looking for a president that can unite the country.

Take, for instance, gas prices.

(LAUGHTER)

You know, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or an independent, you look at these gas prices and you’ve got to ask yourself, “Why have we as a country allowed ourselves to be held hostage to some very unstable countries and the people that export oil like Iran?”

Don’t you think that there’s so many issues like gas prices, like alternative fuels that, again, Republicans may have, you know, rolled their eyes about in 1992 or 193, but now it makes a lot of sense for all Americans for us to get smart on an alternative energy policy?

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