This made me laugh a little.
… I’m kind of sick of blaming Hillary for acting like the woman she was carefully trained to be. Today I feel a bit like blaming Bill for not being the kind of man the future demands.
I do understand the points in this essay, but for all his faults, I still think Bill Clinton is Hillary Clinton’s greatest asset in the upcoming presidential race. He reassures a lot of people. The example of his presidency is remembered quite positively when compared with the presidency of George W. Bush. The economy was booming back then. We had relative peace in the world. Things seemed simpler and better.
And Bill is a master of explaining stuff. It’s true that he can get off his game when the subject is his wife. He needs to watch that.
But, for all my gripes about Bill Clinton, he’s a political star. He knows how to fade into the background, as he did during Hillary’s senate career. But I don’t think her campaign will benefit if his checks himself into a monastery for the next year and a half.
Having said that, there’s still some good advice for him in that column.
I find some commentary hilarious … blaming the role model of a loyal wife to a husband getting into trouble. Bill has a great political instinct, has a high comfort level in meeting people, a good relationship with the Afro-american community from which Hillary can benefit. Bill and Hillary, a bond made “in heaven.” The negative perception of Hillary by voters can’t be blamed on Bill. A lot is of her own doing, during her term as senator from New York in need of the backing by Murdoch and her 4 years as SoS in the Obama administration.
As far as Bill’s racket and his Foundation … retire from politics and enjoy your other life living amongst the world’s greatest and wealthiest. Very much similar to Britain’s Tony Blair … leave political power to a new generation. My gut feeling tells me Hillary won’t succeed in the rough ride ahead. During the campaign for the highest office, a man and spouse or a wife and spouse are always united. The support and loyalty should not even be in question.
Always interesting to check the achievements of Hillary Clinton mentioned in the above article. I picked this relationship:
… published a well-regarded paper on children’s rights, began a long-lasting professional relationship with Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman …
○ Hillary Clinton & the Children’s Defense Fund
Peter Edleman provided detail after detail about why Clinton’s welfare reform bill was a mistake. One sentence in particular haunts me from this essay published more than ten years ago: “Nonetheless, the study showed, the bill would move 2.6 million people, including 1.1 million children, into poverty.”
The only separate sphere of political influence from Bill that Hillary developed was through the Edelman’s and the CDF. It’s what gave her creds with the Carter administration. When tested in the real world: do the right thing or screw that for short-term, Clinton political advantage, she didn’t hesitate to throw the Edelman’s under the bus. What makes that particularly egregious and obnoxious is that she continued to tout her deep concern and interest in children.
John Kerry at least had the decency to waffle and express internal conflict before casting his vote in favor of the IWR. Doesn’t make his vote any less excusable or not politically expedient. Suggested that he retained enough humanity that he could be a less blood-thirsty SOS than his predecessors stretching back over three decades.
There’s a reason the opposition is so frantic about tying them together, it riles their base. But the Big Dog is still enormously popular, as Obama will be.
If the Democratic party doesn’t use both of them heavily in 2016 it will be political malpractice. If we can reduce the GOP to spitting howling madmen (Which Bill and Barak can do so well: “Please proceed, Governor” is one of the most amazing bits of political knifework since the Ides of March…) it will only benefit the party.
But the Big Dog is still enormously popular,
A shame that enormous popularity didn’t do diddly squat for almost all the anti-Obama, pro-Clinton Democratic candidates in 2014. Sen Mark Warner, who we were told was also “enormously popular” barely won his re-election bid against the charisma challenged Gillespie in his first and only run for office.
The myth of the great Clinton among Democrats is as more fact free than the myth of the great Reagan among Republicans.
Bill Clinton should learn to garden and bake cookies. And learn how to be a surrogate instead of a principal.
Explanations of issues and policies but not taking questions from the media because he is not the candidate and the candidate should answer the types of questions the media will ask.
And showcase the family dog with Bill. Nothing says retired like always being seen with the family dog.
The story he has to counter is that what Hillary is fronting is the third Bill Clinton term.