【英语生活】走近希拉里（上）

This is what it is like to be Hillary Clinton. The motorcade, twisting and skidding through rain-splashed streets for more than an hour; the public meetings and camera lights at journey's end; the spotlight that has not let up for two decades. It is almost as if the 2008 US presidential election – hailed as the most exciting for a generation – had never ended.

But this is a campaign without a vote. Today, Clinton's convoy is snaking through S?o Paulo, Brazil, not South Hampton, New Hampshire. She herself is no longer an aspirant for the White House, despite what the overnight flights, town hall meetings and strategy sessions that make up her gruelling schedule might suggest. Instead, she is in Latin America to shore up relations with the region and promote a new idea of US leadership, one very much built around herself.

She's had bigger and more ecstatic audiences than the 700-odd students and staff crammed into the hall tonight at Zumbi dos Pradares, an Afro-Brazilian university, but she's still greeted by a wave of raised arms as the audience snaps away at her with their mobile phones.

In the convoy moments before, she was wrapped in a shawl, suffering from a cold and angry at the delays that pushed us into the side streets speckled with box-like bars, warehouses and love hotels while Brazilian motorists sought to cut into our path. There is no sign of that now. With the metabolism of a born politician, she feeds off the energy of her audience and takes questions from students, teachers and local celebrities for an hour. Hillary Clinton never looks happier than when she is centre stage.

Most US secretaries of state wouldn't bother with this sort of event, much less initiate it and arrange for it to be screened on the biggest local channel. Yet this is what Clinton does on almost every foreign trip – and she seems to spend half her life on her official 727, crammed with long-time aides and armed bodyguards. The schedule is backbreaking and constantly shifting. She has notched up more than a quarter of a million miles since taking office.

On this Latin America trip, thrown into confusion by an earthquake in Chile, we have already visited four countries in 24 hours. We go to tiny Uruguay, where our stay is so brief we check into a hotel just for a shower; Argentina, where we spend almost all our time at the presidential palace; Chile itself, where we don't leave the airport; and Brazil, where we spend almost a full day.

So what exactly is Clinton trying to do on this never-ending world tour? Travelling with her for a week, talking to people inside and outside the administration, I tried to find out.

. . .

“We now have a case to make and it is not just a case that is made to the president or the prime minister or the foreign minister or an ambassador,” she tells me a few weeks later, as she perches on a sofa in her expansive office, with its view of the Lincoln Memorial. “People now have a voice and an opinion and a vote in many instances on the direction that their own societies take ... I want to model a different kind of leadership that is open and willing to listen but [also] to stand our ground if necessary.”

She argues that these trips of hers help to restore the US's image in the wake of the Bush administration – by making contact with public opinion abroad, and so boosting American power. Her aides say that, as a battle-hardened politician who also happens to be one of the most famous women in the world, she is ideally placed to carry out the task. But the deeper question is whether she is merely implementing the foreign policy crafted by Barack Obama, her boss and former rival, or whether her role – and ambitions – go beyond that.

Is she a kind of saleswoman-in-chief for the US, I ask? “Well, I think that is part of the job,” she replies, toying with the napkin underneath her glass of water. “If you are making a case for American values and for American leadership, you have to make it where people now get information … Given the bridges we had to build and some of the repair work we had to do, we had to travel.”

As in S?o Paulo, her system is under strain – “I've been fighting this all day,” she says as she masks a cough set off by her allergies (Washington's cherry blossom trees are shedding their flowers). Life is still hectic – the volcanic ash cloud has just all but paralysed Europe and televisions throughout the State Department are showing the first British election debate. But Clinton remains enthusiastic, affable and unhurried, her speech peppered with exclamations such as “oh my gosh”, even as she discusses issues of state. She politely asks if I have any updates for her about Europe's airspace shutdown and tells me she's been talking to Norway's foreign minister about it.

“He said that this dust gets into engines of any size, even Air Force One – it's chunky! I don't know how else to describe it,” she says, an odd note of hilarity entering her voice as she pronounces the word “chunky”.

Clinton often speaks in this eager, unvarnished way – a world away from the clipped, on-message manner of her immediate predecessor in the post, Condoleezza Rice. If anything, she is an undiplomat – known less for calibrated circumlocutions than for her plain speaking and sometimes her gaffes, a woman who retains both a formidable political constituency and a laugh she once admitted can send cats scurrying from a room.

Her staff point out she is only the third elected politician in 60 years to have served as secretary of state, and the first to come from outside the foreign policy establishment since James Baker, George H.W. Bush's right-hand man and perhaps her most illustrious recent predecessor. She may be the most substantive politician in the office since William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate who served as secretary almost a century ago. “Her stature on the world stage, her almost presidential stature, has set her apart,” Bill Burns, the top career diplomat at the State Department, tells me. “Leaders want to meet her. And the town hall meetings do make a difference with public opinion.”

(to be continued)

Daniel Dombey is the FT's US diplomatic correspondent

这就是希拉里?克林顿(Hillary Clinton)的生活：车队在雨水飞溅的街道上蜿蜒疾行一个多小时；等在旅程尽头的是公开会议和闪光灯；笼罩着她的聚光灯二十年不曾消失。一切就仿佛2008年的美国总统选战（被誉为一代人时间内最激动人心的大选）根本没有结束。

但这次是一场没有投票的战役。现在，希拉里的车队正穿行于巴西圣保罗（而非新罕布什尔州南汉普顿）的街头。她也不再有志问鼎白宫，尽管构成其繁忙行程的通宵航班、市政厅会议和战略会议可能让人产生那样的错觉。相反，她此次拉美之行是为了加强美国与该地区的关系，推介一种有关美国领导力的新理念，一种在很大程度上围绕她本人构建的理念。

登上舞台

她曾经面对更大、更狂热的场面，但今晚在以非裔巴西人为主的朱姆比大学(Zumbi dos Pradares)座无虚席的礼堂，她仍受到700多名学生和员工的振臂欢迎，人们用手机对着她拍照。

稍早前在车上时，她裹着一件披肩，忍受着感冒，并对晚点感到愤怒——由于晚点，车队被迫钻进一条条满是盒子般的酒吧、仓库和情人旅馆的小巷，还有巴西驾车者不时试图抢我们的车道。可现在，那些不快已完全消失。这位天生的政治家在听众的激情面前再度容光焕发，她花了一个小时回答学生、老师和当地名人的问题。对希拉里来说，似乎没有什么时候比身处舞台中央更开心了。

多数美国国务卿不会费神参加这样的活动，更别提主动提议、并安排当地最大的电视频道转播了。然而这是希拉里几乎每次出访的必修课——她似乎把一半时间花在她的波音727专机上，机上还挤着长期跟随左右的助手和佩枪的保镖。日程安排得满满当当，还不断变化。自上任以来，她已飞行了25万英里以上。

24小时内访问了四个国家

在这次被智利地震扰乱的拉美之行中，我们已在24小时内访问了四个国家。我们去了小国乌拉圭，在那里的逗留时间如此短暂，以至于我们进入酒店只是为了淋浴；还有阿根廷，在那里我们几乎所有的时间都在总统府度过；然后就是智利，在那里我们没有离开过机场；然后在巴西，我们度过了几乎整整一天。

那么，希拉里希望通过这种没有止境的世界之旅，做到一些什么呢？我跟随她一起旅行了一周，与奥巴马政府内外的人士交谈，以求找出答案。

……

“我们现在有一种观点要提出来，它不只是一种要向总统、总理、外交部长或大使提出的观点，”几星期后，她在办公室里的沙发上对我说。她的办公室非常宽敞，可以看到林肯纪念堂。“如今，人们对于自己所在社会的发展方向有自己的看法和意见，在许多情况下还能通过投票来表达……我想塑造一种不同的领导模式，一种开放、愿意倾听、但在必要时也坚持立场的模式。”

她辩称，通过与国外舆论接触，她的这些访问有助于修复美国在布什政府之后的形象，从而增强美国的实力。她的助手表示，作为一个身经百战的政治家，而且恰巧也是全世界最有名的女性之一，她很适合执行这项任务。但更深层次的问题是，她是否仅仅在落实其上司和曾经的对手巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)的外交政策，还是她的角色（还有野心）超越了这一范畴？

美国的“首席女推销员”

她算是美国的“首席女推销员”吗，我问道。“嗯，我觉得这是我工作的一部分，”她回答说，手里摆弄着玻璃水杯下面的纸巾。“如果你要推介美国的价值观和美国的领导力，你必须到人们如今获取信息的地方去……鉴于我们必须架起桥梁，以及我们不得不做一些修补工作，我们就得四处访问。”

就像在圣保罗时一样，她的整个身心都处在压力之下——“我一整天都在对付这病，”她一边说，一边遮掩因花粉过敏引起的咳嗽（华盛顿的樱花正在落地）。生活依然忙碌——火山灰云团几乎瘫痪了整个欧洲，美国国务院办公室的电视上都在播放英国有史以来首次选举辩论。但希拉里仍然热情、和蔼和从容，她的话语中不时夹杂一些感叹词，比如“我的天”，哪怕她正在谈论国家大事。她客气地问我有没有关于欧洲关闭领空的最新信息，并告诉我，她已与挪威外长讨论过这个问题。

“他说，这种灰尘会进入任何规格的飞机引擎，连‘空军一号'(Air Force One)也不例外——这种灰云够厚实的，除此之外我不知道该怎么形容它，”她说。她在说到“厚实”时，语气中露出一丝奇怪的俏皮。

非传统意义的外交官

希拉里经常以这种热切、坦率的方式说话，与其前任康多莉扎?赖斯(Condoleezza Rice)那种简短清晰、照本宣科的方式大相径庭。归根结底，她并非传统意义上的外交家（较少字斟句酌的外交辞令，更多直言不讳，有时还会失言），而是一个保留强大政治势力的女性，自己承认发出的笑声足以让猫吓得跑出房间。

她的下属指出，她是60年来出任国务卿的仅仅第三位当选政界人士，也是自詹姆斯?贝克(James Baker)以来第一位来自外交政策圈以外的国务卿。贝克是乔治?H?W?布什(George H.W. Bush)的得力助手，可能也是她最杰出的近期前任。她可能是自威廉?詹宁斯?布赖恩(William Jennings Bryan)之后执掌国务院的最有份量的政治家（近一个世纪前担任过国务卿的布赖恩曾三次参选总统）。“她在世界舞台上的名望，她几乎像总统般的风采，都使她与众不同，”美国国务院顶级职业外交家比尔?伯恩斯(Bill Burns)对我说。“外国领袖希望见她，而那些市政厅会议的确对舆论产生了实质性影响。”

（待续）

丹尼尔?董贝是FT美国外交事务记者