It turns out that Senator Ted Kennedy had the exact same reaction as yours-truly when it comes to former President Bill Clinton’s campaign behavior — only Teddy has a tad more clout. Columnist Robert Novak reports:
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy may have endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president anyway, but his support was hastened by Bill Clinton’s disregard of Kennedy’s plea for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign to moderate anti-Obama rhetoric.
Kennedy has told associates the former president listened politely to his telephoned advice to dial down criticism of Obama that emphasized him as the African-American candidate. Then Clinton turned around and continued to zing Obama in campaigning for the South Carolina primary. Kennedy likes Hillary Clinton but is not so keen about her husband.
This is precisely what we’ve said on our posts.
LEFT ALONE, Hillary Clinton is an increasingly-appealing candidate and she is coming across as competent, tough and highly-knowledgeable in her debates, TV appearances and speeches. Her husband has not been helping her campaign but rather tripping it up.
If voters perceive (in the primaries but particularly in the general election) that voting for Hillary means voting for two Presidents, then it could hurt her. And it will diminish her historical role and the fact that her name may be why she is in the running but she comes across as a strong candidate who has good buzz as New York Senator.
It’ll be interesting to see if there is another Bill Clinton Story between now and Super Tuesday. Shall we take bets now?
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.