Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling

Written by Amy Chozick

Narrated by Amy Chozick

For nearly a decade, Amy Chozick chronicled Hillary Clinton’s pursuit of the presidency. Chozick’s front-row seat, initially at the Wall Street Journal covering Mrs. Clinton’s imploding 2008 campaign, and then at the New York Times where she was assigned “The Hillary Beat”, set off a years-long journey in which the formative years of her twenties and thirties became, both personally and professionally, intrinsically intertwined to Clinton’s presidential ambitions. As Mrs. Clinton tried, and twice failed, to shatter “that highest hardest glass ceiling,” Chozick was trying, with various fits and starts, to scale the highest echelons of American journalism. 

In a rollicking, hilarious, dishy narrative, Chozick takes us through the high- (and low-) lights of a wildly dramatic presidential race. But Chozick’s unique vantage point and candor lift the veil from the story we thought we all knew. Here is the real story of what happened, with the kind of inside detail that constantly surprises and enlightens.

 But Chasing Hillary is also the unusually personal and moving story of how Chozick came to understand Clinton not as an unknowable enigma and political animal, but as a complete, complex, person, full of contradictions and forged in the crucible of political battles that had long predated Chozick’s years covering her. And as Chozick gets engaged, married, buys an apartment, climbs the professional ladder, and inquires about freezing her eggs so she can have children after the 2016 campaign, she dives deeper into decisions Mrs. Clinton had made at similar points in her early career. In the process, Chozick develops an intimate understanding of what drives Clinton, how she accomplished what no woman had before, and why she ultimately failed. And the social fissures in the electorate that would drive angry voters to Donald Trump and blindside Hillary Clinton, unexpectedly bring out the tensions in Chozick’s own life—between the red state she came from and the blue state she ended up in, between her desire to climb in journalism as a woman, but be treated no differently than a man. 

 Mrs. Clinton's shocking defeat would mark the end of the almost imperial hold she'd had on Chozick for most of her professional life. But the results also make Chozick question everything she’d worked so hard for in the first place. Political journalism had failed. The elite world Chozick had tried for years to fit in with had been rebuffed. The less qualified, bombastic man had triumphed, as they always seemed to do, and Mrs. Clinton had retreated to the woods in Chappaqua, N.Y. finally comfortable enough to just walk, no makeup, no pants suit, showing the real person Chozick had spent years hoping to see. Illuminating, poignant, laugh-out-loud funny, Chasing Hillary is a campaign book like never before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780062856180

Amy Chozick

Amy Chozick is a writer-at-large for the New York Times. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, she lives in New York with her husband and son.

[dchaikin_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

46. Chasing Hillary : Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling (audio) by Amy Chozickpublished: 2018format: 12:42 Libby audiobook (~352 pages, 382 pages in hardcover)acquired: Librarylistened: Jun 27-Jul 3, Aug 31 - Sep 11rating: 4+Hesitant to pick up Hillary Clinton's book, [What Happened], I got this from the library instead. I was worried that there were aspects of Clinton that she herself wasn't aware of that played a key role in the election and I wanted something more at a remove and critical, but reasonable. This fit that to a degree. And, I love these kinds of books, by journalists about what they are seeing as they cover the stories. But this had two hard lessons.Chozick was the New York Times reporter assigned to follow the Clinton campaign. This means that she was on the press plane and attended about every event she could, at the cost of, in a way, of being too close and not getting a chance to really analyze the campaign, and do research and talk to other people and whatever it entails to get a broader picture. Her book is wordy and mixes in a lot extra information about her personal life, but Chozick is entertaining and writes intelligently and perceptively and is a terrific narrator. Unfortunately, she writes about a very naive, under-experienced journalist making a lot of mistakes, losing sight of the big picture, and accomplishing roughly the opposite of what she intended. Kudos for honesty, but... Chozick saw Clinton up close and all the problems and awkwardness Clinton managed to convey to the press, and that's basically what she reported. From her came a series of negative articles - to the point that Clinton campaign hated her. Of course, she was actually a big fan of Clinton. What she did was exactly in line with what the New York Times accomplished in a nutshell. Find the flaws in every candidate, and equate them on the headlines. Clinton e-mails become just as bad on Trump's lacks of ethics. It's a really disturbing kind of insight and one that left me disheartened and discouraged with our big presses. (I know, I'm not alone there).But this book is a two punch, and that's just one of them. The other is against Clinton. Anecdotal side note: So, I know I made too much of this, but I have this memory of Clinton as Secretary of State, after having recently lost to Obama. She was in Malaysia and doing an event with a bunch of kids and I was interested because, despite all her time as a public figure, I never felt I got a sense of who she was. It was such an awkward event. Clinton clearly wasn't comfortable with these kids, but she forced her way through it, smile pasted on. The kids were fine and, later the same day news stories praised her. I've been worried about her since. (this isn't in the book, of course)Clinton, it turns out, is really awkward with the press and with groups of people she doesn't know in general. In her fund raising sessions, she can cut the chase and say the critical stuff and comes across really smart. She is really smart. She is also knowledgeable, experienced and hard hitting. But, in the midst of supporters and watched by the press, she struggles and hates every minute of it, pastes on the fake smile that no one thinks is real. She looks like she is putting on an act. Chozick thinks it was Clinton's handling of the emails that gave Trump the confidence he could beat her. I think this noteworthy. Most people at a sane-allowing political remove know that e-mail thing was a lot of about nothing. It's unfortunate she wasn't careful, she should have known better, but mainly it was just bad consequence of a kind of innocent mistake. But, it became a story because Clinton couldn't handle the press and kill it. It was left to linger.She was apparently way worse in 2016 than in 2008. Chozick implies she seemed worn out and she kept the press, the group Chozick was a part of, at an unbridgeable distance, never letting any of them get to know her or interview her. No private conversations, no insightful comments and news releases. She even had two campaign planes - one for herself, and a second plane for the press dedicated to following her campaign.In a nutshell, she was terrible with the press and did everything in her power to make it worse. I close this book convinced that had Clinton become president she would have pushed a lot of good policies, done a generally good job with all the executive agencies, appointed generally good people to critical posts, and the country would have hated her. Every mistake would be blown out of proportion, like Benghazi, and she wouldn't handle it well. In the midst of whatever success, the spotlight would be focused on the problems. And the New York Times would be part of that. I really appreciate this book. I have to say that. Whatever Chozick did or didn't do wrong in her job, she provides a great deal of insight here into a lot things. I wonder how much of this kind of analysis is in [What Happened]. How does one say, "I was awkward at my own rallies and hated them"? How does one say, "I failed to build any relationship with the press because I didn't want to"? You can't get that kind of ground truth from the person who is actually in the spot light and must be guarded about everything they say. As we now live under a world where the US is run by a sociopathic nutjob undermining critical aspects of all government agencies and the courts, strengthening the ugliest world leaders, while running out a series a news-absorbing lies and nursing his relationship to white supremacists, it's kind of hard to understand how this happened. Russian bots, Breitbart, Fox and The Drudge Report all played their parts in their misinformation campaigns, but also, the mainstream press allowed themselves to be played, and the Clinton campaign was unable to manage it.

[r · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I worry for poor Amy. What Hillary must have on her, in order for her to have to write this, must be horrifying.

[binsel1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully and truthfully written and narrated. Brings a very difficult period to life, managing to be both sympathetic and objective about her subject and herself.

[fmclellan-29530 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sad and disturbing account of an obviously dysfunctional campaign. Well written and interesting account of the girls on the bus!

[ennuiprayer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There moments (at the end) when I just wanted it to finish, but for the most part it was an interesting read.