Help or hindrance: Doubts grow over Bill Clinton

Times of London ^ | 03/01/08 | Tim Reid

[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.

[poobear]

“...rapidly eclipsed by an untested arriviste 15 years his junior.”

Well, Bill Clinton would sure know THIS description!

As far as the media giving anyone a pass, they did that for Bill’s entire political career until just lately!

Get over it Willie, your time expired long ago and you’re just figuring it out! Hope you saved your money. Those guest speaker fees just dried up.

[flowerplough]

and is still one of the greatest speakers and political strategists in America.

Please, stop, Mr. Reid. You know American politics like I know the shopping in Chelseaford-upon-Avonshire. Clinton was the best Dem huckster running in '92, and his acting skills and lack of conscience stood him in good stead, but Perot elected him, and Bill's failed middle-class tax cut and Hillarity's incarceratory health care "reform" and Bill's gays in our military elected the Gingrich Congress of '94.

Clonkton's most successful "strategy" was to allow Reagan's Cold War victory and the baby boom's near-simultaneous discovery of the stock market and the internet drive a bubbly economy that tamped down the various Muslim terrorist eruptions, while he hunted for chubby/middle-aged oral sex in the White House hallways and bathrooms. It worked for six years, somehow, but the (Democrat) press finally did begin to point out that Arkansas is as Arkansas does.

[LibLieSlayer]

osamabama is starting to fade... he will lose to the beast... and the fact that the msm uses the biggest lie (and now debunked by a massive majority of scientists) propagated on the western world (globull warming) to prove a point about the empty suit with dumbo ears, proves that there is no "there" there. The media will turn on him when the timing is right.

LLS

[NCLaw441]

...his wife is the “best change-maker I’ve ever seen in my entire life”...
***

If I were the wife of a serial adulterer and I was the “best change-maker” I might consider using my powers to change my husband’s behavior. That Hillary has not done so suggests her powers of change aren’t as well-developed as Bill suggests.

[The Ghost of Rudy McRomney]

Yep, and the end run around the Constitution HAS been the plan since the 1990s. The one thing they hadn’t counted on was the fluke of Obama.

“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.”

This has got to be the most laughable statement EVER WRITTEN by anyone in the press, after giving the Clintons a free pass their entire political career.

[Ditter]

If I had been married to bill clinton the first thing I would have changed would have been the locks on the doors.

[Ditter]

see post 26

[bray]

If he wont sleep w/her, why should America??

Pray for W and Our Troops

[fightinJAG]

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.

[Pikachu_Dad]

ROFLOL

[PA-RIVER]

Best one liner in months, bravo!!!!

[bray]

This loss is going to cost the Clinton Chinese Mafia over a $Billion in Graft.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[NYpeanut]

The rapist should watch his back around hillary’s people. “Widow” Clinton could make a huge comeback with sympathy voters.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Stabbed and bobbittized?:-)

[Steely Tom]

It is amazing that there is a word for almost everything.

There's no word for hitting the "red" on every one of a long row of synchronized stoplights.

[harpo11]

The clintons are retreads. Old, tired, nothing new to offer, just the same swindling, reckless, negligent, scandalous, arrogant, pompous, petty, vicious politics of personal destruction, whining, and bitterness.

Send her home to Bill.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Must be really crushing to Bill that his wonder shtick no longer works.