Emerges stronger

Clinton emerges stronger for next phase of campaign

Following her debate performance, the Benghazi hearing marked the second time in recent weeks that she made a difficult task look easy.

By Annie Karni

After a difficult summer slog, Hillary Clinton appears to be back on top.

The week began with Bernie Sanders, her chief Democratic rival, getting devastatingly lampooned by Larry David on "Saturday Night Live," the stage where Hillary Clinton had scored points just a few weeks earlier by gamely mocking herself. Then, the specter of Joe Biden haunting Clinton’s campaign disappeared, when the grieving vice president announced he would not compete in 2016.

And on Thursday, sitting in the hot seat for a marathon 11-hour hearing, Clinton delivered a win by remaining calm and mostly unflappable as her Republican interlocutors on the House Benghazi Committee became heated. “She looked big — or at least bigger — than her opponents,” said one close Clinton ally following the hearings Thursday.

The remarkable week puts Clinton in better standing than she was at this point eight years ago, when Barack Obama changed the course of the election with an electrifying speech at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. It was a pivotal moment that marked the beginning of the end of Clinton’s presidential hopes that cycle. Today, as she gears up for that same dinner this weekend, Clinton appears to be the one enjoying a pivotal, game-changing moment.

“Today represents a turning of the page on all the pseudo-scandals of the last several months,” said Media Matter’s founder and professional Clinton defender David Brock. “I’m looking forward to being less busy over here on that front. ”

Following her strong debate performance, the Benghazi hearing marked the second time in so many weeks that Clinton — never the natural politician — struck the right tone and made a fairly difficult task look easy. With a row of her top attorneys and aides seated stone-faced behind her, Clinton laid out her vision for diplomacy abroad in her opening statement. She watched silently and remained above the fray as the Republican chairman of the committee, Trey Gowdy, sparred with Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings over the political nature of the hearing.

And during three breaks, she appeared upbeat and eager to get back to the trail as she greeted Democratic members of Congress who came to show support. “Are you going to come to my Katy Perry concert?” she asked Iowa Rep. Dave Loebsack of the upcoming rally the pop star and Bill Clinton headline this weekend in Iowa. “I hope so, too!”

The strength of her voice as she testified before the committee told the whole story — the wounded front-runner struggled all summer with allergies that often made her lose her voice and succumb to long bouts of coughing in the middle of speeches and fundraisers. But her voice cracked just once on Thursday, and only after 10 straight hours of testimony. She reached for a throat lozenge, and continued unfazed.

Allies said they felt the campaign had rounded a corner and the finish line was now in sight. “Hillary has survived a very rough summer and emerged stronger,” said longtime Clinton hand Paul Begala, now an adviser to her super PAC. “My prediction: the next time Hillary appears on Capitol Hill will be on Jan. 20, 2017, to take the oath of office.”

At Brooklyn campaign headquarters, the mood of staffers working a late night was described by insiders as "exhausted, vindicated and happy." One press aide, Josh Schwerin, tweeted, "exclusive: Post #BenghaziHearing footage of @HillaryClinton," with a GIF from her "Saturday Night Live" appearance, in which she is fist-bumping with the actress who plays her, Kate McKinnon. Clinton took no questions from reporters who sat through the hearing, eyes glazing over, as she left.

Her surrogates expressed awe. "The woman has amazing endurance," said former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. "She didn't only handle the Republicans today — she answered every question with the grace and a commanding knowledge of a true leader."

Granholm added that the hearing was "an important step for her to be able now to speak to the issues that people care about.”

The FBI's probe into Clinton's use of a private email server while at the State Department, however, is still ongoing. And the regular releases of her emails are expected to continue at least through the end of the year.

But Brock credited the one-two punch of the debate and her testimony for a change in the dynamics in the race. “There are moments that turbocharge themselves and need no more amplification,” he said (although his group Correct The Record was amplifying all day with a 30-person war room pushing out rapid response fact-checks and news releases throughout the hearing). “Hillary’s debate performance is an example of that, and so is today. They’ve unwittingly turned this into the Committee to Elect Hillary President.”

For observers of the primary, some of the drama of the past months seemed to have ended Thursday night, with Clinton operatives focusing their sights on finally getting a policy platform to break through.

But the Sanders campaign maintained the race has only clarified.

“We’ve had a sensational week, too,” said Sanders’ senior adviser Tad Devine. “We got a kick out of Larry David, we raised more money from small contributors in two weeks than [the Clinton campaign] did in three months.” And Sanders team also said it was a relief to have Biden out of the race. “He was someone who could win the nomination,” Devine said. “I see the race now as a much cleaner and clearer one in terms of voter choice: You’ve got Hillary, and you’ve got Bernie.”

But even Devine admitted he had tuned in to some of Clinton’s Benghazi testimony. He admitted: “she was very compelling.”