Bill and Hillary Clinton may not be joined together at the hip, but they are connected at the base. For if the former First Lady is to win the Democratic presidential nomination next year, it most likely will be by resurrecting a coalition of voters quite similar to the one that propelled her husband to the Democratic nomination in 1992.
The irony is that it is not the base of support that one would suspect two of the “best and brightest” of the baby-boom generation to fashion. Rather, the heart of the Clinton’s base is a “downscale” coalition of minorities and the elderly, the less educated and the least affluent, as well as the most partisan Democratic voters. Bill rode this coalition to the Democratic nomination in 1992. Early polling this year shows that Hillary is reassembling it.
To be sure, in chasing the Democratic nomination in 1992, Bill showed strength across the demographic spectrum–as has Hillary in polling thus far this year. But the greatest strength of both is their appeal to voters who are living lives much different than the Clintons.