Bill Clinton will remain prominent
for the rest of the primary campaign
Posted on 01/27/2008 5:34:54 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Bill Clinton will play a bigger role in his wife Hillary's election campaign than her vice presidential running mate if she wins the Democratic White House nomination, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
In late night strategy sessions Mr and Mrs Clinton have decided together that the former president will stay in the spotlight for the rest of the primary campaign and then take the fight to the Republicans in the general election.
Bill Clinton will remain prominent
for the rest of the primary campaign
Voters in South Carolina go to the polls today in a primary election that is expected to give he chief rival Barack Obama an important victory, setting up a bloody battle for supremacy on February 5, when 22 states vote.
But Clinton aides have rejected claims that the former president's rancorous public row with Mr Obama is damaging Mrs Clinton's image and that of the Democratic Party.
One Clinton camp figure familiar with discussions in her inner circle told The Sunday Telegraph: "WJC [William Jefferson Clinton] is going to be there from now on. Bill's doing what running mates normally do; he's acting as the lightning rod. Whoever is the running mate will have to get used to the idea that he is in the lead.
"Just as, when she's president, whoever is her secretary of state will have to deal with the fact that Bill can just get on the phone to Gordon Brown and go to Britain and ask him to help out on an issue. That's a fact of life."
Clinton strategists believe that the former president has succeeded in marginalising Mr Obama as the candidate of black Americans, and diverted him from his message of change - a claim backed up by a new poll showing that just one in 10 white voters supports Mr Obama in South Carolina.
Aides say Mr Clinton - who has questioned Mr Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq and is accused of distorting statements the Illinois senator made about Ronald Reagan - has occasionally been "too hot" in his criticisms.
But The Sunday Telegraph has learned that his role was carefully plotted with Mrs Clinton in the days before her shock victory in the New Hampshire primary election, three weeks ago.
The Clinton aide said: "They meet every night and talk things over. This is their strategy, no one else's. It's a very personal thing for them. "Forget the idea that this is hurting her. Democrats love Bill Clinton. African Americans still love Bill Clinton."
The Clintons are already looking ahead to the general election that will follow the two parties' nominating contests. Strategists have not ruled out inviting Mr Obama to become Hillary's running mate, but they believe he would not accept a secondary role to Mr Clinton and question whether voters are ready for both a woman and an African American on the ticket.
"The question is how much change is too much change?" one said. Senior party figures remain uneasy at the sight of Mr Clinton, who has been called America's "first black president", resorting to personal attacks against the man who might actually become the first African American in the White House.
John Kerry, the Democrat candidate in 2004 whose campaign was derailed by a dirty tricks campaign, accused Mr Clinton of "frantic" distortions of Mr Obama's record.
"I think you had an abuse of the truth," he said. "Being an ex-president does not give you license to abuse the truth, and I think that over the last days it's been over the top. I think it's very unfortunate."
Many Democrats fear the highly public row is handing ammunition to the Republicans for the general election. Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan presaged the likely line of attack, calling Mr Clinton a "civic embarrassment" for treating "a proud and accomplished black man who is a US senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans."
And Michelle Bernard of the group Independent Women's Voice, said: "How un-feminist it is to get your husband to do your dirty work?"
When Mrs Clinton addressed 700 supporters in an eve of election rally in Charleston on Friday night, her husband introduced her. Hoarse from three other public meetings of his own that day, he said: "The most important thing is who will make the best president." There were audible cries of "You!" amid the chants of "Hil-aaa-ry."
In the crowd, feelings were mixed about the former president's approach. Two African American women, who watched Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton on successive nights, decried his behaviour.
Kadedra Kiner, 42, a products manager with a software company, said: "What he has been doing is just not necessary. It's coming across as highly personal and they need to get back to the issues. It is not playing fair.
"There's only one Obama. He has a wife but she is not the ex-president. Bill has taken out the boxing gloves and is defending his wife but I want to hear from the candidates not from him."
Accountant Mary Mitchell, 50, said: "He has been a little too strong. I want to hear about the issues not that personal stuff. I want to know how she will lower gas prices and bring our guys home from Iraq."
Mr Obama, who has been thrown from his message of change by the spat, will seek to regain the initiative with a series of high profile speeches this week designed to add "beef" on major issues to his optimistic rhetorical flourishes.
Mrs Clinton will not stay in South Carolina for the result, holding a rally in Nashville Tennessee instead, a key southern state on February 5. Campaign aides dismiss the claim that Mr Clinton is risking his own reputation as a world statesman by returning to political pugilism, since his own identity is so tied up with his wife returning them both to the White House.
One campaign insider said: "You've got to remember that he's very good at this. He's been doing it for a long time. He's passionate about it. He gets too hot sometimes. But it's fine. It's working."
Mr Clinton's biographer Nigel Hamilton wrote: "People underestimate what a competitive animal Bill Clinton is. It's the blood that runs through his veins, the fire that ignites him."
As he worked the rope line late on Friday night, Mr Clinton was behaving himself, smiling benignly at reporters but not engaging with them as he had earlier in the week.
Instead he concentrated his megawatt personality on the voters, hitting them with a smile, a handshake and factual nuggets - at one point claiming that the solar panels in his Presidential library will be helping save the planet for 150 years.
Bill is necessary to handle everyday contact, speaking for Mrs Toon but always being able to deny anything he says.
"He said it, not me. I am the candidate."
This is so laughable. "Shock victory?" The Clintons had double-digit leads in NH right up to the Iowa caucus. So it was a shock victory alright. That it was only 2 points instead of 20 in an all-white state.
It should be noted that this article was apparently written before Obama's "shock" victory in South Carolina by 31 percentage points. Nobody saw that coming, not even the Clinton bum-kissers at the Telegraph.
He's the only hope for the GOP this year ...
Hmmm. Aren't the voters supposed to have a say in who takes the fight to the Repubs?
Hmmm ... but the current Drudge tease is just the opposite:
NYT LEAD MONDAY: Hillary's campaign will try to 'shift former President Bill Clinton back into positive, supportive-spouse role' he played before her loss in Iowa... Developing...
How do you spell "campaign in chaos"?
I’m partially color blind but it looks like Bill’s tie is the same color as Hillary’s pantsuit. Is it?
Are you suggesting that being sick makes you listen to liberals?
;->
Aaaaaaaghhh! Romney was right: it's terrifying to envision ol' BJ in the White House with nothing to do. Except to meddle, meddle, meddle and try to create his own "new legacy" as First Blabbermouth.
Yep, canary yellow.
This sounds just like James Carville and/or Paul Begala. They can't wait to get their smarmy little butts back in the White House.
I think we have had more than enough of 'two for the price of one'.
That’s pathetic.
No one and I mean no one is going to tell that fool what to do. These same people who are trying to get him under control are the same ones who were making excuses for him during eight long years of hell.
Bloody hell, wha a bunch of git! The UK telegraph can bugger off, for all I care.
the fact she sucks ain’t why this is happening........
this is their last play............I’m serious
the media ain’t got the HillBilly’s back no mo’
As Semper911 answered, yes. But it's worse than that.
Yellow and black -- especially in stripes (the block trim on Hillary's suit) -- is a color schema and pattern recognized throughout the animal kingdom as "DANGER!" Think HORNETS. In modern culture, think "POLICE LINE". Crime scene tape.
It is beyond ironic that Hillary would choose that color scheme and pattern. It's scary!
Now wait a minute. I thought she DIDN'T SUCK.
And that that was the reason for Monica and her predecessors.
If Hillary sucked they'd never have had those "Bimbo Eruptions"...
So... you're saying she's learned how???
“Bill can just get on the phone to Gordon Brown and go to Britain”
I think I’d rather have someone who’s accountable to the President and Congress go to Britain. This sounds like Val sending Joe to Niger.
Which dirty tricks were those? Buckhead here on FR disproving Dan Rather’s phony documents within minutes of when they were broadcast? Or the TV shots of John Kerry windsurfing?
bill clinton is looking more evil all the time.
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