WASHINGTON — Two new books about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) offer a wealth of fresh details that reinforce her reputation as a shrewd, ambitious and calculating political figure, but campaign observers raised doubts Friday that the accounts would set back her presidential chances.
Both books, by veteran journalists, cover the broad swath of Clinton's life and political rise, digging back into the heavily mined controversies over President Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky and the Clintons' Arkansas finances and stretching into her Senate years.
One is written by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., investigative reporters who wrote about the Clintons for the New York Times; the other is by Carl Bernstein of Watergate reporting fame.
The first political shudders from the books' approaching publication were set off Friday when the Washington Post unearthed much of the juiciest contents. The most immediate controversy flared up over passages in Gerth and Van Natta's "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton" that reported the Clintons had secretly fashioned a "20-year project" to send them both to the White House.
Clinton campaign officials questioned the account. They noted that the Post quoted one purported source for the story, historian and Clinton friend Taylor Branch, as calling it "preposterous."
In portions of the book obtained Friday by the Los Angeles Times, Gerth and Van Natta also write that in 1996, Bill Clinton told then-Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta about the "20-year project." Panetta did not return calls for comment Friday, and Hillary Clinton campaign officials dismissed this account as well.
Bernstein's "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton" also is said to have its share of nuggets, reportedly describing a tense Hillary Clinton as the key figure behind much of the White House's defense against GOP-mounted scandal investigations.
As veteran political strategists and consultants for both political parties gossiped over partial accounts of the books on Friday, few found evidence of any revelations that could do serious immediate damage to Clinton's presidential prospects.
The books are "interesting and perhaps illuminating, but they didn't drop any new revelations into the campaign," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who headed up public opinion surveys for Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004.
