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Uncommon Ground
Hillary has often said that this is the hardest job she’s ever had. It’s
not just the constant travel but also the speed and range of the issues
she must master. She finds being secretary of state even more taxing
than the 2008 campaign, where she could go on autopilot and give
the same speech six times in a day, and had heard all the questions
before. “With each month there’s more wear and tear,” says Jake
Sullivan, a young lawyer and former Rhodes scholar, who has
emerged as one of her closest advisers. “But she also gets more
energized and comfortable.” A half-dozen of her friends agree that
they have never seen her more in her element. “She seems engaged,
happy, focused, determined, and very tired from all the travel,”
observes Tom Vilsack, an early supporter from his days as governor
of Iowa, who is now the secretary of agriculture. “I can’t remember
her ever working this much,” says Dr. Irwin Redlener, who has
advised her for many years on children’s issues.
Despite running against each other, the president and secretary of
state have a lot in common in the way their minds work—more,
arguably, than either has in common with Bill Clinton. Staffers have
noticed that both Obama and Hillary are methodical, secure, and
human-scale when you talk to them; they’re deductive thinkers who
drill down into a problem. The former president, by contrast, is
discursive, needy, and larger-than-life; he’s an inductive thinker with
a connective mind.
Of course, the sense of order and discipline that Obama and Hillary
share belies significant differences that may yet re-emerge. Hillary
long ago instructed staffers not to look back to the bitter 2008
primaries or criticize Obama, and for the most part they don’t. But
late at night, when they’re safely distant from “the seventh floor” (the
mahogany-lined part of the State Department where Hillary and the
other power players work), aides complain that Hillary’s creative

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