No hometown advantage for Clinton

Sen. Hillary Clinton, campaigning in New Hampshire today, has a lot of work to do back "home,'' it appears. AP Photo by Jim Cole.

by Glenn Thrush

PARK RIDGE, Ill. - First the city fathers tried bolting it right onto the old street sign. Then they ordered the special vandal-proof steel fasteners and super-strong epoxy. But nothing stopped the souvenir hunters from swiping the little green "Rodham Corner" sign when the sun set on Wisner Street.

Last year, officials here moved the marker 15 feet up, onto a light pole. It's nearly impossible to spot unless you've made a pilgrimage to 235 Wisner, the faux-Georgian brick house where Hillary Rodham grew up.

"So far no one's gotten to the sign way up there, but they will," city manager Tim Schuenke said.

Park Ridge, Ill. -- population 37,775 -- is a congenial, prosperous, 95 percent white suburban enclave 15 miles northwest of Chicago. From age 3 until her high school graduation, Hillary Rodham lived in a two-story house purchased by her cranky, penurious father, Hugh Rodham, for $35,000 in cash.

Clinton is the town's best-known daughter (Harrison Ford is its most famous son), so it's hard to find a gathering these days where she's not at least a fleeting topic of conversation.

But Clinton doesn't enjoy any home field advantage on her block, where she grew up a pugnacious, precocious and uncommonly well-read tomboy.

There's civic pride about her accomplishments, and an appreciation of her reportedly positive impact on Wisner Street real estate values. But when it comes to presidential politics, ambivalence blankets the block like its broad, emerald lawns.

"I'm still analyzing each candidate, but I don't think it's going to be Hillary," said Andria Barone, 31, a psychologist who lives four houses down from 235. "I don't like the way she does politics, the way she tries to make the other person look bad, like she did with Obama after that last debate," she added.

Most city officials are staying neutral. "We know there's a campaign, but we're not all rah-rah about it," said Schuenke, whose job is nonpartisan.

The Country Club subdivision hasn't changed dramatically since Clinton left 40 years ago, unless you count property values. The most derelict house on the block, abandoned months ago when the owner died, is on the market for about $675,000.

For Clinton, Park Ridge remains a centrist touchstone, anchoring her in the country's geographic and political center.

She often tells crowds of growing up "in the middle of America in the middle of the last century." In her autobiography, she talks fondly about playing kickball in the street with the neighborhood boys, careful to avoid hitting her father's Cadillac, and venturing as a teenager to see the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago.

But even back then, the block tilted conservative.

"I like Mitt Romney," says Joel Streightiff, 44, who lives across the street from her old house. "I'm a Republican, but I'm not a single-issue guy. ... I kind of hope she'd win so the Democrats would be forced to deal with the war instead of just complaining about it."

His wife Jessica is leaning toward Republican presidential challenger Rudy Giuliani. "The realtors talk about Hillary's house when they show people round," she said. "When I told my dad about the house, he said I'll never come to visit ... But he did.'"

The city is represented in Congress by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a liberal Democrat whose district is reliably blue in presidential contests. But Wisner Street remains stubbornly red.

However, homeowner Lenore McCann, 48, said she's backing Clinton in 2008.

"I feel very good living three doors down from Hillary's house," said McCann, a high school administrator. "I'm definitely in the minority on Hillary but I think the neighborhood is slowly changing. ... You'll even occasionally see someone wearing an 'Impeach Bush' T-shirt!"