History Forum / General / British History / January 2008

After Obama Victory, Clinton’s Camp Seeks Gentler Role for
Ex-President

"Gentler Role" -- Hilarious! -- DSH

By PATRICK HEALY

The New York Times

Published: January 28, 2008

Democrats inside and outside the Clinton campaign on Sunday debated and in
some cases bemoaned the degree to which former President Bill Clinton’s
criticism of Senator Barack Obama last week had inflicted lasting damage on
his wife’s presidential candidacy.

Licking their self-inflicted wounds... -- DSH

“I think his harsh style hurt Senator Clinton — it polarized the campaign
and polarized the electorate, and it also made it harder for Senator Clinton’s
positive message to break through,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic
strategist and pollster who is not affiliated with any of the candidates.

Precisely! -- DSH

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign team, seeking to readjust after
her lopsided defeat in South Carolina and amid a sense among many Democrats
that Mr. Clinton had injected himself clumsily into the race, will try to
shift the former president back into the sunnier, supportive-spouse role
that he played before Mrs. Clinton’s loss in the Iowa caucuses, Clinton
advisers said.

Hilarious! -- DSH

But Democrats said it was not clear whether the effects of Mr. Clinton’s
high profile could be brushed away by having him modulate his campaign
style. They said Mr. Clinton had upset some of the central themes of Mrs.
Clinton’s campaign, including her appeal to women and her assertions that
her time in the White House during the 1990s amounted to vital experience
rather than a link to a presidency defined as much by scandal and partisan
divisions as by its successes on fronts like the economy.

Yep!  Particularly when he starts shaking his finger and puts on that "I
didn't have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky" face. -- DSH

Despite Mrs. Clinton’s months-long efforts to build a base of support among
women, Clinton advisers said they were concerned that her husband’s recent
prominence may have dampened her appeal as a strong female leader. Some
advisers said they feared as much after Mr. Obama won 54 percent of the vote
from women in South Carolina, including 22 percent of white women and 78
percent of black women, according to polls.

Echoing private remarks by some Clinton advisers, Linda L. Fowler, a
professor of government at Dartmouth College, said in an interview that she
believed Mr. Clinton’s attacks on Mr. Obama had hurt Mrs. Clinton.

“Voters don’t like the idea of a co-presidency, and he became so high
profile that he made people begin to see this as a possible co-presidency,”
Ms. Fowler said. “It’s even more problematic because she’s a woman. It looks
like she either needs him to fight the big battles for her, or she can’t
keep the big dog on the porch.”

Or out of the hens' coop. -- DSH

After a week of all-out campaigning by Mr. Clinton in South Carolina, where
Mrs. Clinton came in a distant second to Mr. Obama, there is also fresh
concern among some advisers that Mr. Clinton’s visibility has dented her
argument that she has the best experience for the job.

These advisers expressed concern that the specter of a co-candidacy and
co-presidency could bring back elements of the Clinton history that many
Democrats would just as soon leave behind.

Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, a leading supporter of Mrs.
Clinton, said on Sunday that Mr. Clinton was going to pull back. “He’s got
to,” Mr. Rangel said. “The focus has got to get back on Hillary. For all
that he cares about his wife, this has to be her election to win, and it’s
become too much about his role.”

I've long felt that the Electorate is VERY uncomfortable with this "two for
one" idea of the Clintons for a Co-Presidency. -- DSH

Yet some advisers expressed concern that Mr. Clinton might prove difficult
to rein in, citing the latest furor over the weekend after he compared Mr.
Obama’s victories to Jesse Jackson’s in 1984 and 1988 on Saturday, though
Mr. Jackson did not approach the wide margin of Mr. Obama’s win.

Let Clinton Be Clinton. -- DSH

Advisers said Mr. Clinton’s remark was an off-the-cuff reference, but it was
debated on the Sunday news shows and in the blogosphere as a possible effort
by the Clinton camp to diminish Mr. Obama’s success in South Carolina as
simply the result of a black candidate drawing support from a heavily black
electorate.

Of COURSE it was. -- DSH

Mr. Obama, asked about the remark on the ABC program “This Week With George
Stephanopoulos,” mostly sought to praise Mr. Jackson — a supporter of his —
while decrying the injection of race into the campaign.

“Jesse Jackson ran historic races in 1984 and 1988, and there’s no doubt
that that set a precedent for African-Americans running for the highest
office in the land,” Mr. Obama said. “I think people want change. I think
they want to get beyond some of the racial politics that, you know, has been
so dominant in the past.”

Yes. And Bubba dived right back into it. -- DSH

Mr. Clinton’s ability to be a distraction was evident on Sunday as reporters
repeatedly asked Mrs. Clinton about her husband’s role in the campaign and
his comments about Mr. Jackson, which she characterized as benign.

“I think everyone who knows Bill knows that he’s both a great student of
politics and history, but he’s also somebody who brought our country
together,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Memphis.

Clinton advisers said that Mr. Clinton would continue to campaign nearly
full time for his wife in the days leading up to the Feb. 5 primaries and
caucuses in 22 states, yet they added that he would take a more positive
tone.

They said his role would be akin to his effort before the Iowa caucuses,
when he highlighted Mrs. Clinton’s record and her policy ideas, and was used
in part to build huge crowds on college campuses rather than attack Mr.
Obama. (It was after her third-place finish in Iowa that Mr. Clinton turned
much more aggressive.) The campaign announced Sunday night that Mr. Clinton
would speak on Tuesday at a college in New Jersey, which has a Feb. 5
primary.

“Bill Clinton is going to continue to campaign on behalf of his wife and
tell her story and make his case about why she should be president,” said
Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director.

And what will he do when the first hostile questions get posed to him --
turn red-faced and start pointing his finger again? -- DSH

Mr. Wolfson said the campaign would turn its focus to the Florida primary,
which is Tuesday, although that primary is considered little more than a
beauty contest.

And Mrs. Clinton will not campaign in Florida — honoring a pledge that the
Democratic candidates took after the state moved up its primary date against
the national party’s wishes — though her campaign said she would hold an
event in Florida on Tuesday night as the primary results come in.

Baloney!  She is ALREADY campaigning in Florida and yet trying not to look
as if she is totally defying the DNC by going "public". -- DSH

<http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080127/D8UEG4RG0.html>

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.
-------------------------------------------------

DSH

"To care FOR HIM WHO shall have borne the battle and for his widow,
and his orphan."

Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address, who was too ignorant to know
that:

"One must always look at:

SPECIFIC SENTENCES when parsing and grammatically correcting English:

NOT try to use a cookie-cutter model of 'General Rules'...."

(DSH)