From 1995 to 2000, Hillary Clinton wrote a weekly newspaper column that was reprinted in hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the world and read by millions. As the second first lady to write a column — Eleanor Roosevelt was the first — she made history, not for the first time and, as we now know, not for the last.
Creators Syndicate worked closely with Hillary each week discussing the column, persuading editors to run it and distributing it far and wide. The internet was in its infancy in those days, and we felt it was important in 2016 to reproduce each column in chronological order digitally as a matter of historical record so readers of all ages, especially those who were not of reading age between 1995 and 2000, could see what Hillary Clinton thought was important 20 years ago. Rereading these columns, I was struck by how totally consistent and honest she has been over the years on many of the most important issues facing the nation.
Remember, these columns were written before she served as U.S. senator from New York, before she ran for president in 2008, before she served as secretary of state in the Obama administration and before the 2016 presidential election.
The columns also reveal a softer side of Hillary Clinton, which was often distorted during political campaigns — her love of children, her respect for Mother Teresa, her support for working mothers, her normal anxieties when sending her daughter, Chelsea, off to college and her yearning at times NOT to be recognized so she could go about life’s daily activities just like a normal person — and many other insights into this extraordinarily accomplished and kind person.
The origin of this column came Jan. 27, 1993, when I wrote to the new first lady and attached a New York Times story that made reference to Eleanor Roosevelt’s successful newspaper column, which she called “My Day.” It was intended to be a way to talk directly to the American people through the printed page. Mrs. Roosevelt was nothing if not persistent, and she wrote the column every day of the week from 1935 to 1962, an incredible feat!
In early 1995, I heard back from the White House in the form of a phone call from Robert Barnett, an attorney with the prestigious Williams & Connolly law firm. He said the first lady was interested in writing a weekly column for Creators Syndicate and asked whether I could travel to Washington soon to meet with her.
I was on the next flight out, and the following morning, I was ushered into a basement office in the White House, where I met Hillary Clinton for the first time. Wow, was I impressed! She was amazingly charming and relaxed and interested in everything. In that windowless office, we sat on old-fashioned metal chairs like you'd find on a Navy ship. It was early morning, and she was drinking coffee out of a paper cup and was as friendly and gracious as you could imagine.
I’m not sure how, but pretty quickly we discovered that we had the same baseball hero in our youth: the great Ernie Banks. We had both grown up in Chicago suburbs and visited Wrigley Field throughout our childhoods in the 1950s. I said I remembered as a little kid loving it there but then getting bored, when all of sudden Ernie would pop another home run out of the park. “Yes!” she said. “Yes! Yes!!!”
As we were discussing the column, she asked about the next step. I suggested that she write three or four sample columns that we could show to newspaper editors. Several weeks later, she sent us those columns and asked for feedback. We said they were good but a little formal. They reflected her training as a lawyer, and our goal was to be a little more conversational. She took notes and was really paying attention. She sent us her revised columns, and I was amazed at what a quick study she was.
She also came up with the name of the column, "Talking It Over,” because she said she wished to have a friendly conversation with as many people as possible in this great country. The column was a runaway success for five years, appearing in hundreds of newspapers and magazines worldwide. The column ended in 2000 after she decided to run for the U.S. Senate in New York.
But during those five years, she sent in a column every week and never once missed a deadline, even when she was in India attending and writing about Mother Teresa's funeral. Several times, she even handwrote her column and had it faxed to our Los Angeles office.
She once came to our office for lunch, and we served food from a local deli. She had proposed a "working lunch," and the only working lunches I knew involved deli sandwiches and coleslaw.
I remember getting cold feet a week before her visit and telling Melanne Verveer, her chief of staff at the time, that we probably should get something fancier — maybe hire someone like Wolfgang Puck to prepare a special and elegant meal for the first lady.
"Absolutely not," Melanne said. "I can't tell you how much Hillary loved the idea of delicatessen food and a working lunch."
Sure enough, we had a relaxed and fun lunch discussing her column. She had just visited a classroom in Brazil, and the teacher had posted newspaper clippings of her recent columns on the bulletin board in class as a way of teaching the students English.
One of the things that impressed me most about Hillary Clinton was the caliber of people she surrounded herself with — competent and friendly straight shooters.
She also was very relaxed and personable, quite different from the person I have seen described as stiff and unfriendly.
About a month after we launched the column, my family and I went on vacation to a dude ranch near the mountains that surrounded Ronald Reagan's ranch in California. We were riding horses one afternoon, and when we returned to the cabin, there was a note on the door saying Hillary Clinton had called from the White House.
She said she and the president were enjoying a rare quiet evening in the residential quarters and she just wanted to see how the column was doing. We talked about the column for a while, but then she was suddenly interested in the idea of going to a ranch on vacation. "Bill, doesn't that sound great?"
A few weeks later, the White House announced that the Clintons were headed to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to enjoy the beauty of Grand Teton National Park.
White House spokesman Michael D. McCurry said at the time that President Clinton needed some well-deserved rest: "He plans to hike and camp and raft. He's looking forward to horseback riding."
Now, maybe this was a long-planned vacation, in which case Hillary naturally would have been interested in our stay at a horse ranch, but possibly, it was a last-minute decision sparked by the thought of having fun at a ranch. Either way, the friendly conversation stuck with me.
Creators Syndicate does not take political sides. We look for columnists and cartoonists who have talent, strong beliefs and an ability to communicate their views so they will attract readers. Over the years, this list has included the legendary cartoonist Herblock, Bill O'Reilly, Hunter S. Thompson, Dr. Ben Carson, Ann Landers and dozens of other household names.
We are reprinting many of our columnists’ work as e-books in chronological order so that a historical record of their columns will be read and appreciated by future generations. This digital collection of Hillary Clinton’s column, “Talking It Over,” reprints what she wrote at the time, word for word.
The Hillary Clinton book, Talking It Over, was published in 2016 by
Creators Publishing.
