This is not a good sign of a healthy Hillary Clinton for President campaign. In fact, it’s the sign of a campaign that now perceives itself to be in trouble:
Bill Clinton said Tuesday that if reporters covered the candidates’ public records better, his wife’s presidential bid would be far ahead of her rivals.
During a campaign stop on behalf of his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former president said he can’t understand why so much of the media coverage of the campaign ignores her experience – and, without naming him, the relative lack of experience of her closest Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
“One percent of the press coverage was devoted to their record in public life. No wonder people think experience is irrelevant. A lot of the people covering the race think it is (irrelevant),” Clinton said to students at Keene State College.
A bad, bad move, for several reasons:
(1) It won’t win over any votes and will lose his wife votes. Most people who don’t like Hillary Clinton have other issues. It is not because she is getting a terrible press. In fact, for the first part of her campaign she had an almost adoring press. But candidates beware: the media doesn’t really DECIDE there is a narrative, it happens (sort of like..you know what). And the typical cycle is The Rising Candidate, The Now Top Candidate Stumbles, The Now Top Candidate Falls. And there is The Former Top Candidate Returns.
(2) It’ll lose her votes because it’s keeping the issue out there of the fact that during a Hillary Clinton’s Presidency Bill will be either lurking in the shadows or perhaps fighting some battles for her. Yes, many Americans do love Bill Clinton. But Bill Clinton is as much as piece of old baggage for her as he is a beautiful valise.
(3) Blaming it on the media won’t work. To be sure, pundits, candidates, and most assuredly many bloggers scream IT’S ALL THE PRESS’S FAULT! when there’s a problem. But newspapers don’t just run stories with boilerplate information about a candidate’s record. The record is important but does not drive news coverage ..
(4) Some voters won’t totally buy the experience argument, no matter how true it is. There are some who feel that Mrs. Clinton — who by all accounts published and personal (I have friends in New York) has been an excellent, responsive-to-constituents Senator — is where she is because of who she married. By stepping into the battle — and in political terms stepping into it — Bill Clinton is keeping alive some concerns some have about American politics becoming a kind of rotating dynasty for the Bush and Clinton families.
(5) Bill Clinton hasn’t specified who suggested his wife’s experience was meaningless. Unless he has polled the news media or can run a new Psychic Hotline, it’s a blanket statement that will not win over a single solitary vote and be perceived as coming from a husband who is angry that his wife’s once-seemingly-shoo-in campaign now seems to have some problems.
(6) It perpetuates the image of a campaign that is in trouble and is lashing out. Even if that image is really not true, it’s hard to see how media coverage of him saying Hillary is not getting fair media coverage will help her. Not getting good press as an excuse for poll numbers is historically a thumb sucker excuse.
In 2008, Hillary Clinton’s task was to win over a large number of people who don’t like her and see her as a polarizing figure. She had been making strides until she went to war against Obama. Bill Clinton’s comments don’t help her imagery.
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.