It’s becoming increasingly clear that, if Democratic-nominee-to-be Sen. Barack Obama loses the election, some members of the Democratic Party will blame the Clintons and some of their supporters, particularly with this LATEST twist: on the eve of the convention, Bill Clinton is reportedly upset behind-the-scenes about his speech assignment.
It’s worth looking at this piece in The Politico extensively, since it is one more piece of a puzzle that suggests — at this writing, at least — that some people associated with Clinton wing of the Democratic Party are putting their own preferences over the usual party goal of unification during a tough Presidential battle:
As Democrats arrived here Sunday for a convention intended to promote party unity, mistrust and resentments continued to boil among top associates of presumptive nominee Barack Obama and his defeated rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
One flashpoint is the assigned speech topic for former president Bill Clinton, who is scheduled to speak Wednesday night, when the convention theme is “Securing America’s Future.” The night’s speakers will argue that Obama would be a more effective commander in chief than his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
The former president is disappointed, associates said, because he is eager to speak about the economy and more broadly about Democratic ideas — emphasizing the contrast between the Bush years and his own record in the 1990s.
This is an especially sore point for Bill Clinton, people close to him say, because among many grievances he has about the campaign Obama waged against his wife is a belief that the candidate poor-mouthed the political and policy successes of his two terms.
[UPDATE: The Obama and Clinton camps have issued a joint statement denying there is controversy or friction between them and blasting reports that suggest otherwise.
UPDATE II: More details from Marc Ambinder]
In other words: Bill Clinton is angry because, when people tune in, his message is supposed to be a forward-looking speech that can benefit the nominee versus a more backward-looking speech giving his take on his OWN legacy that would be a speech partly about him…a kind of delayed-rebuttal to things said during the primary campaign.
If this report is correct, once again Bill Clinton is proving to be a divisive intra-party figure who is not helping his party’s chances for victory in November.
And, according to The Politico, the Obama side has about had it.
Some senior Democrats close to Obama, meanwhile, made clear in not-for-attribution comments that they were equally irked at the Clinton operation. Nearly three months after Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the nomination contest, these Obama partisans complained, her team continues to act like she and Bill Clinton hold leverage.
After a period earlier this month when the two sides were working collegially over strategy, scheduling, and other convention logistics, things turned scratchy again in recent days.
Some senior Obama supporters are irritated at how they perceive the Clintons fanned — or at a minimum failed to douse — stories that she was not even vetted as a possible vice presidential nominee. This is because she told Obama she preferred not to go through the rigorous process of document production unless she was really a serious contender, an Obama associate noted.
One senior Obama supporter said the Clinton associates negotiating on her behalf act like ““Japanese soldiers in the South Pacific still fighting after the war is over.” Yet another one likens them to “bitter-enders” who assume that Obama must accommodate them rather than the other way around. And, the website goes on, some Clinton top aides do believe just that.
But, according to The Politico, Hillary Clinton is proving to be more of a party-first person than her apparently-petulant husband:
Hillary Clinton, who associates said seems more at peace with the results of the nomination battle than her husband, is treating her speech preparation as an all-hands-on-deck exercise, bringing back longtime aides who worked with her during the White House years and in her Senate office.
There are some ironies here:
(1) Obama has already come under fire in many quarters — in both parties — for allotting so much of a convention usually used to launch the candidate to the Clintons. Some pundits even said the Clintons have “hijacked” the convention. Now it’s down to the wire — and, if this report is correct, Bill Clinton is still keeping the Obama camp from devoting full attention to launching their candidate.
(2) The situation for the two parties is now clearly-reversed from what the conventional-wisdom was some months ago. It was predicted that the GOP would have serious problems uniting under McCain due to conservatives who had ideological difference with the Arizona Senator. Now it’s the Democrats who are having problems uniting because, in essence, Bill Clinton and some Clinton supporters are perpetuating a grudge rather than helping unify the party so it could get a Democrat back in office who could influence such commonly-shared Obama-Clinton goals such as the appointment of the next Supreme Court judge.
(3) Reports continue to note that Hillary Clinton has future ambitions and this and other stories won’t help her. There is now a considerable Internet-accessible paper trail on the problems the Obama camp is having with the Clintons, including the angry report in The Politico about Hillary Clinton not being vetted for VP which dominated a news cycle in a way not advantageous to the Illinois Senator. Look for her to have HUGE PROBLEMS if Obama loses and she runs in 2012 — because the Clinton wing is now shaping up as a detriment to not just party unification but the party’s image going into the general election battle.
(4) Bill Clinton hurt his wife politically at some key moments in the campaign. He could be sowing more future problems if this continues into the week.
McCain won’t face any of this when he has his convention. The focus and story will be on him and his nominee — not on behind-the-scenes problems with George Bush or Dick Cheney or stories about Huckabee voters who threaten to sit out the election or vote for Obama because they’re mad their guy lost.
Parties with fractured conventions usually go down to defeat. Parties with segments that drag their heels or don’t vote are defeated. In this case, it isn’t as if Obama is facing demands to change or temper his policy positions. In reality, Hillary Clinton and Obama have many of the same views. This now seems largely about bruised egos and possible political payback — and to heck with the Supreme Court.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.