Posted on 03/01/2008 12:15:18 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
March 1, 2008
Help or hindrance: Doubts grow over Bill Clinton
Tim Reid in Dayton
Bill Clinton is speaking rapidly, a sense of urgency in his hoarse voice, finger jabbing the air, as he implores this Ohio crowd to believe that his wife is the “best change-maker I've ever seen in my entire life”.
The former President, who in 1992 campaigned here as the fresh-faced 45-year-old man from Hope, turned his attention to this year's 46-year-old man of hope, Barack Obama, who on Monday packed an 11,000-strong crowd in Wright State University.
“The case Hillary's opponent is making is that you should vote for him because he embodies change - that anybody who was part of those fights in the 1990s should be disabled and disqualified to be president. Words do matter - the eloquence matters - but Hillary's worked to change people's lives all her adult life.”
The Stebbins High School gym is only three-quarters full. It was never meant to be like this. The Democratic Party's greatest rock star, 61, talking about the achievements of the past, his hair an electric white, and failing to fill a small arena in the state where his primary victory in 1992 clinched the presidential nomination for him. Before Obamamania, in the heady days last year when Mrs Clinton looked inevitable, it was her husband who was expected to be the campaigner dazzling huge crowds and raising record sums of money.
The former President is working tirelessly to save his wife's imperilled campaign ahead of Tuesday's make-or-break contests in Ohio and Texas. He held five events in Ohio yesterday, and will speak at seven in Texas on Monday.
He and Mrs Clinton's top aides have said that if she fails to win both states, her White House hopes are almost certainly finished. New polls yesterday showed Mr Obama slightly ahead in Texas and having pulled into a statistical tie in Ohio. Mrs Clinton raised an extraordinary $35 million ($17.5 million) in February, only to hear that her rival has raised at least $50 million.
Yet there is a powerful sense that Mr Clinton is not just fighting for her, or even for his own legacy, but against a galling sense of injustice that his status in the Democratic Party as its swaggering baby-boom hero is being rapidly eclipsed by an untested arriviste 15 years his junior. One of Mr Obama's central arguments has been that the Clintons are part of the problem, central characters in the villainous partisanship of the 1990s, figures from the past against his promise of a new, less divisive future.
“When Bill Clinton came through here in 1992, he was exciting,” said Martin Gottlieb, who has been reporting on Dayton politics for a generation. “But nothing in my 24 years has even come close to this Obama phenomenon. He's getting crowds much bigger than Bill ever did.” Then he looked around the Stebbins school crowd. “And now look. He can't even fill a gym. If you had told me that a few weeks ago I would have been surprised.”
Mr Clinton is also facing allegations that he carries significant blame for his wife's troubles. Some Democrats say that he effectively hijacked the campaign in January. In his efforts to push back against Mr Obama - particularly in heavily African-American South Carolina - he stands accused of using race to demonise the Illinois senator, a charge he fiercely denies.
Yet one of the undeniable tragedies of this campaign for Mr Clinton has been his loss of support among the black community. His tactics in January, his detractors say, showed an indulgent loss of control that turned his wife's campaign into a co-presidential bid - bringing with it unpleasant reminders of the more vaudevillian aspects of their White House years.
The Clintons can never be written off. Mrs Clinton's February fundraising has allowed her to compete aggressively on the air against Mr Obama in Ohio and Texas. Her husband is now relentlessly disciplined in his message, and is still one of the greatest speakers and political strategists in America. Aides say that he is dismayed by the strategic blunders his wife's campaign has made, and the way money was wasted. He now has much greater control over strategy, and in Maggie Williams, Mrs Clinton's new campaign manager, a team he has faith in.
What has frustrated Mr Clinton the most, his aides say, is what he believes has been the “free pass” the media has given Mr Obama. One adviser said such soft-glove treatment is indisputable. “It's like global warming. The evidence is overwhelming,” they said.
Now there is a good word.
“his hair an electric white”
Uhh, what color is “electric white”?
-Liars-- and Sleaze, Incorporated... ( my files on the clintons and friends )--
-Hillary Clinton- archives, comments, and opposition research --
I'm not the first to follow The Lady MacBeth of Little Rock:
Bill’s hair is more sink, er, porcelain, white.
““It’s like global warming. The evidence is overwhelming,” they said.”
Except it’s not.
“Uhh, what color is “electric white”?”
My Crayola just says “OLD.”
He's just ticked because his own "free pass" has apparently expired.
a person who has recently acquired unaccustomed status, wealth, or success, esp. by dubious means and without earning concomitant esteem.
I had to look it up.
Amazing! When I came to the word “arriviste” I actually stopped and copied it into a word file....it so perfectly describes Obama.
Doubts grow over Bill Clinton....most in America and the world have never had any doubts about this a-hole and his cankled fat ass shrew of a “wife”.....at least she has 35 years of experience!!!!
Funny, after not having asked Mrs. Clinton a hard question in years concerning everything from her destroying woman who have made sexual accusations against her pervert husband to her inability to accomplish much of anything, they accuse the media of giving Obamma Lamma Ding Dong a pass?
Laughable.
OLD
Schadenfreude
I’m wallowing in it.
And now would they both just GO AWAY.
It is amazing that there is a word for almost everything.
Lest anyone forget...Bill's game has always been to gain control - and will be in control again if Hillary is in the WH. Anyone who thinks that weak, cry-baby, inept woman will be able to lead independently without Bill making all the plays is not remembering how he has always been able convince her to do his bidding and covering-up. That's all this campaign has been about for them. Can anyone believe after all the years of her dependency on him that she will suddenly and truly give him a back seat and take lead herself? She is only the "front man," in this criminal couple.
In essence she won't be the first woman president in the White House, she will just be taking on the role of First Lady - again - to Bill's third term. That's the plan.
That old NY Times political editor R.W. “Johnny” Apple wrote about “the Slickster” when he was first elected , talking about how Bill’s blue jeans “crackled with electricity” The drive bys just can’t write a story without the electricity metaphor.
They’re old, so they lose the young. They’d have lost the black vote no matter what, because there’s Obama. The Clintons haven’t changed, they’re no worse than before; it’s just that now they’re old and tard, so people can see them better.
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