It is now official: former President Bill Clinton has now injected himself so deeply into wife Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination that he has himself become an issue:
Sen. Barack Obama says he’s ready to confront former President Bill Clinton, calling his advocacy on behalf of his wife’s presidential campaign, “troubling.”
He is not the only Democrat to say that. Read our earlier post HERE. Read Jill Miller Zimon’s post today HERE.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts to air Monday on “Good Morning America,” Obama, D-Ill., directly engages Bill Clinton on a series of issues. MORE:
“You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling,” Obama said. “He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts — whether it’s about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas.“This has become a habit, and one of the things that we’re going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he’s making statements that are not factually accurate,” Obama said.
….In his interview with Roberts on “Good Morning America,” Obama said the former president has taken his campaigning on his wife’s behalf too far.
With Obama’s new strategy, the Democratic nomination fight took on a new contour: It’s Obama versus two Clintons, not just one. And the line of attack emerging from his second consecutive primary loss appears to be this: The Clintons are a couple whose words cannot always be trusted.
What is truly amazing is that for years the Clintons were considered the masters of political shrewdness who knew how to piece-together coalitions and aggregate interests — not splinter coalitions and aggravate interests.
What all of this is leading to is the tarnishing of Bill Clinton’s image and the alienation of a segment of the Democratic Party that might either stay home in November or not totally get out to vote. And that segment is not just African-Americans but independent and other voters who — like Senator Ted Kennedy and some other prominent Democrats — feel Bill Clinton has gone way over the line in his attacks on Obama.
The term that is coming up repeatedly talk radio, on websites (we’ve used it) is that Bill Clinton is now basically acting as if he is running for a third term. This is WAY beyond a political spouse campaigning for his or her “better half.” And it is off-putting to some people who might be considering her.
I know of one independent voter in San Diego who has his mail-in ballot in front of him and has had it with watching Bill Clinton do a Karl Rove imitation. And he is not even an Obama supporter (I won’t use his name, of course…).
A FEW OTHER VIEWS:
—The Edge Of The American West:
I was one of the thousands of moronic progressives who lived through Bill Clinton’s presidency by gritting my teeth. I totally underestimated what an effective leader he was — at the time and given the givens. In retrospect, though, I think he was one of our better presidents*, perhaps even cracking the top five.
So, it has been with considerable anguish that I’ve watched him demeaning himself with his odious attacks on Barack Obama. And let me be clear: Bill should be stumping for Hillary. For more reasons than I have time to catalog. But I wish that he would campaign with more dignity. I find his tendency to toss bombs and then throw up his hands with a “What? Me?” expression on his face especially maddening. If he keeps this up, I think he’s going to end up doing Hillary more harm than good. And he’ll certainly damage the party’s reputation, as he remains, to a very great extent, the most visible and popular Democrat in the country.
I can’t imagine that the Clintons won’t respond. And I can’t imagine this not getting uglier… and less and less helpful to the Democratic party.
I don’t expect Bill Clinton, who’s not a shrinking violet, to be neutral in his own wife’s nomination campaign. But I have to admit that the intensity of Bill Clinton’s attacks on Barack Obama really makes me uncomfortable. I know there are a lot of Democratic party insiders, mostly older than I am, who don’t like it either. But I wonder if there’s not some generational aspect to it for people my age. I was in my early 20s in 1992. And really throughout the 90s you couldn’t be a bigger Clinton guy than I was. So it’s hard to see that history (and it’s quite some history) leveraged to muscle this campaign.
Drudge is reporting that Obama hits back at Bill tomorrow morning. About time. It seems to me that since Bill Clinton is effectively running for a third term, he shouldn’t be allowed to trash other Democratic candidates without getting trashed back.
Hillary isn’t the only Clinton running for president. Bill is too, and Barack Obama is finally realizing it. Since he’s now on the receiving end of Team Clinton’s hardball politics, he’s acknowledging what Republicans have always known about the Clintons: they will do and say anything to attain power…
….It was no accident that the Clintons injected race into this campaign. Juan Williams was on Fox News Sunday today discussing how disgusted he was that the Clintons successfully redefined Barack Obama from a presidential candidate who happens to be black into the black presidential candidate, thereby polarizing the Democratic electorate upon racial lines. The Clintons are nasty people, and for the first time it appears that some Democrats are starting to understand that. Obama is learning the hard way just how low the Clintons will sink to get power
Hillary Clinton benefited from support from women in New Hampshire and Nevada, and Obama’s criticism of Hillary may have triggered feminist sympathy and votes. Criticizing Bill lets Obama attack Hillary by proxy and (perhaps) avoid a feminine backlash. In other words, Obama may be using Bill to avoid the pitfall of gender politics. Ironic, isn’t it?
The remarkable thing about the statements as a tactic is this: it changes the nature of this war–a war called the 2008 Democrat nomination process, but is one that may be dubbed the Great Identity Politics War when we look back on it.
Obama has–wisely–changed to a more vulnerable target. No longer does the battle pit Man against Woman–one in which the woman is perceived to be the underdog even if the man is black and the woman is white. Now it’s Black Man against White Man–and you know who the alleged underdog is in this battle.
Just remember the nature of Identity Politics Wars; the “weaker” opponent is always the victor.
Obama made a big step in making this an issue. He has explicitly tied Bill to Hillary at a time when other Democrats have begun to beg Bill to get more in the background. Newsweek has an article in this week’s edition that name Ted Kennedy and Rahm Emanuel as party leaders who have told Bill directly to pipe down. Obama has now made it harder for Bill to withdraw from the fight, and Obama clearly now believes that Bill could be an effective way to attack Hillary.
He’s right, and he should continue to pursue that attack. Bill won’t retreat anyway, and the nastiness will continue whether Obama chooses to respond or not. Democrats want Bill to shut up because they see that the American electorate has begun to recall Bill’s less-admirable qualities with this performance on the stump, and that will damage their prospects for regaining the White House considerably. Their best bet would be to find a candidate who isn’t related to Bill — and that argument helps Obama most.
Barack Obama has tried to infuse his campaign with a certain loftiness and positivity, but he has grown frustrated by what he describes as “unbelievable falsehoods” coming from Bill and Hillary Clinton. Expect to see a more aggressive candidate who has already promised to “directly confront Bill Clinton when he’s making statements that are not factually accurate.”
As I see it the likely outcomes of the intraparty squabbling are:
–After primary season is over, Democrats link arms against the common enemy (Republicans).
–The isolation of African American voters within the Democratic Party is lasting.
–Bill Clinton succeeds in undermining his standing within the African American community.
or some combination of the above.
This post was delayed from being posted last night due to work on TMV’s design change. Round-up blog quotes are from last night and today.
UPDATE I:
—Dick Polman says the Clinton’s strategy is beneficial for them. For one thing, Hillary ran remain above it all while Bill’s “atypical” behavior for an ex-President allows him to do all the rough stuff and take the hits while his wife can keep herself above the fray. And he adds this:
And the strategy seems to be working. A lot of independent voters might be rolling their eyes at the latest incarnation of the Clintons’ “two for the price of one” routine, but clearly it didn’t seem to bother the grassroots Democrats who voted in New Hampshire and Nevada. To those folks, Bill is arguably a bigger draw than Hillary; they’d rather listen to his poetry than her prose. And regardless of whether Bill’s attacks on Obama are accurate or not, the bottom line is that his every utterance gets huge media play. Obama will never find a surrogate who can wield that kind of megaphone, even if he was so inclined.
Which brings us back to Obama’s morning lament. It was a sign of weakness. A candidate never looks good when he complains about being attacked and about the general unfairness of it all. Under the rules of civility, perhaps it is unfair that he’s being double-teamed, but, as the saying goes, politics ain’t beanbag. And the Clintons are no doubt delighted with Obama’s response, because every second that he expends on them, complaining about them and trying to refute them, is one less second expended on his own message.
And the Clintons will be double-teaming him for the foreseeable future, because it’s also financially smart.
READ IT ALL.
As for Bill Clinton hurting Hillary, as Peggy Noonan and some others have whined, if she weren’t cleaning Barack’s clock in every debate I’d say it would be a problem. But she is, so it’s not. There isn’t any doubt whatsoever that Hillary Clinton has mastered the details of policy, from economic to health care to national security issues. Is Bill Clinton getting too involved? Let’s remember he’s also her husband, besides being the only two term Democratic president since F.D.R. That’s a tough role to balance, but would it be better if he weren’t so vocal and involved? Maybe if the press was doing their job questioning Obama and looking at his record Bill Clinton wouldn’t have to do it for them. It likely happened out of frustration, because so far nobody in the national press, minus the Chicago papers, have had the courage to take Obama on.
Barack Obama takes on Billy Boy. What else is there for conservatives to do but sit back and enjoy the fight? What shade of purple will Clinton be turning today?
So Obama not only defends himself, which all candidates being attacked must do, but he also taps into the widespread perception that former President Bill Clinton views truth as largely plastic, like the meaning of “is.”
Obama and his surrogates will likely have more opportunities to use this line of counterattack since the former president shows no signs of letting up in order to help Sen. Clinton secure the Democratic presidential nomination.
Of course among many Democrats, Bill Clinton is very popular, but if Obama wants to win the nomination, and then the presidency, then he has to strike back at Bill Clinton as the situation warrants, and most importantly, remind voters why they should vote for Barack Obama not Hillary Rodham Clinton, which he did not due in the Roberts segment. Since Obama polls better than HRC against all of the potential Republican opponents, he needs to use that (Yes, he has done it) a lot more. Or he’ll end up in the Clinton-pincers.
Looking ahead to the general election, a Bubba rapid deployemnt force will be far less effective, and could backfire, leading independents to vote for the GOP candidate in November. Which works for me.
UPDATE III: Josh Marshall now agrees with TMV’s long stated conclusion:
With a day to think about it though I think he’s actually hurting her more than he or perhaps she realizes. Narrowly speaking, in the zero sum context of her battle with Obama, he’s probably helping her. You can’t deny that Hillary is back in a strong position. But here’s the thing. In the week or so leading up to the Nevada caucus I feel like I heard more from and about Bill Clinton than I did about Hillary Clinton. Is that the media’s doing rather than the campaign’s? Maybe. But I don’t find the argument convincing and I’m not sure it would matter if it were true. What seems difficult to deny is that his rising profile is threatening her position as the dominant force in her own campaign.
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.