P
Patriot Games
Guest
http://www.newsmax.com/politics/the_clinton_couple/2008/04/10/87027.html
The Clintons: Still 2 for the Price of 1
Thursday, April 10, 2008
PITTSBURGH -- She can implicitly criticize him and publicly embrace him,
sometimes in the same day. But Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cannot escape the
shadow of her husband, the former president whose huge personality and fame
sometimes threaten to overwhelm her efforts to control the daily message and
tone of her presidential campaign.
This week's events in Pennsylvania bolstered the view that Bill Clinton is
his wife's greatest asset and perhaps her biggest encumbrance.
The only Democrat to win the presidency in three decades, he brings his
renowned political instincts and insights to her private strategy sessions
and to public stages, where he is a crowd-pleasing surrogate that her rivals
cannot match. He also brings baggage.
It begins, of course, with his White House sex scandal and subsequent
impeachment. But it extends to areas that many Democrats would not have
anticipated.
The usually silver-tongued Arkansan has erupted at times, blurting out
racially tinged remarks that have angered many blacks, a key constituency of
his wife's Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama.
And his presidential record is proving to have two edges. Hillary Clinton
embraces his economic legacy, but increasingly distances herself from his
trade policies, a hot issue in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.
The family cross currents resurfaced on Wednesday. In the space of a few
minutes, the New York senator implicitly criticized her husband's stand on
trade with Colombia, then lauded his economic record and campaign skills.
The day culminated with mutual praise, a hug and a kiss in front of 5,000
people, as the Clintons introduced Elton John for a concert at New York's
Radio City Music Hall that raised $2.5 million for her campaign.
Driving the latest intra-family tension is the anger that many Pennsylvania
voters and union leaders feel toward trade policies that they blame for
shipping U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. Acknowledging that her husband
supports the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which she opposes, Sen. Clinton
said in a stop near Pittsburgh: "I have a long record of being on a
different attitude toward trade than my husband does."
She provided few examples beyond the Colombia pact, but added: "I don't
think any married couple I know agrees on everything. And we disagree on
this."
Her opposition to the Colombia proposal seemed to imply a callousness on the
part of those who back it, including her husband. She said she opposes it
"because of the history of suppression and targeted killings of labor
organizers in Colombia."
Moments later, the senator could hardly praise her husband enough. Asked
about their daughter Chelsea's quip that her mom would be a better president
than her dad, she replied: "I think I have two great surrogates, and I only
hope to be able to amass the economic record for our country that my husband
did."
Hillary Clinton's campaign has been inextricably entwined with her husband's
legacy from the start. She cites her eight years as first lady as vital
training for the top job. And the strong opinions many Americans hold for
her, positive and negative, often stem from those days, when she delved
deeply into health care and endured the embarrassment of her husband's
affair with a White House intern.
Surprisingly, given that Bill Clinton was famously called the nation's
"first black president," the biggest problems he has caused his wife's
campaign involve black voters. Black Democrats' support of Obama did not
become so lopsided until he won heavily white Iowa, followed by a key win in
South Carolina, where Bill Clinton angered some blacks with comments before
and after the primary. He first said his wife was likely to lose South
Carolina because so many blacks would back Obama.
After Obama won by a bigger margin than expected, the former president noted
that Jesse Jackson also had won South Carolina's primary, in 1984 and 1988.
Many saw the remark as a bid to marginalize Obama as someone who could not
appeal much beyond black constituencies.
Whatever its impact, it preceded a period in which Obama's black support
reached 90 percent in some states while his margin among whites fell.
Bill Clinton has angrily rejected claims that he was being racially
divisive, although his remarks sometimes furthered the dispute. In March, he
said the notion that he unfairly criticized Obama was "a total myth and a
mugging."
"They made up a race story out of that," he said of the news media, calling
it "a bizarre spin."
Hillary Clinton's eventual win or loss this year will, inevitably, be placed
partly at her husband's feet. At the Elton John concert, he kept his message
simple and adoring.
"She can win this nomination," he said, urging the crowd to resist calls for
his wife to drop out. Then, paying her perhaps the biggest compliment he
can, he said he agreed with Chelsea that her mother would be a better
president than her dad.
The Clintons: Still 2 for the Price of 1
Thursday, April 10, 2008
PITTSBURGH -- She can implicitly criticize him and publicly embrace him,
sometimes in the same day. But Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cannot escape the
shadow of her husband, the former president whose huge personality and fame
sometimes threaten to overwhelm her efforts to control the daily message and
tone of her presidential campaign.
This week's events in Pennsylvania bolstered the view that Bill Clinton is
his wife's greatest asset and perhaps her biggest encumbrance.
The only Democrat to win the presidency in three decades, he brings his
renowned political instincts and insights to her private strategy sessions
and to public stages, where he is a crowd-pleasing surrogate that her rivals
cannot match. He also brings baggage.
It begins, of course, with his White House sex scandal and subsequent
impeachment. But it extends to areas that many Democrats would not have
anticipated.
The usually silver-tongued Arkansan has erupted at times, blurting out
racially tinged remarks that have angered many blacks, a key constituency of
his wife's Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama.
And his presidential record is proving to have two edges. Hillary Clinton
embraces his economic legacy, but increasingly distances herself from his
trade policies, a hot issue in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.
The family cross currents resurfaced on Wednesday. In the space of a few
minutes, the New York senator implicitly criticized her husband's stand on
trade with Colombia, then lauded his economic record and campaign skills.
The day culminated with mutual praise, a hug and a kiss in front of 5,000
people, as the Clintons introduced Elton John for a concert at New York's
Radio City Music Hall that raised $2.5 million for her campaign.
Driving the latest intra-family tension is the anger that many Pennsylvania
voters and union leaders feel toward trade policies that they blame for
shipping U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. Acknowledging that her husband
supports the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which she opposes, Sen. Clinton
said in a stop near Pittsburgh: "I have a long record of being on a
different attitude toward trade than my husband does."
She provided few examples beyond the Colombia pact, but added: "I don't
think any married couple I know agrees on everything. And we disagree on
this."
Her opposition to the Colombia proposal seemed to imply a callousness on the
part of those who back it, including her husband. She said she opposes it
"because of the history of suppression and targeted killings of labor
organizers in Colombia."
Moments later, the senator could hardly praise her husband enough. Asked
about their daughter Chelsea's quip that her mom would be a better president
than her dad, she replied: "I think I have two great surrogates, and I only
hope to be able to amass the economic record for our country that my husband
did."
Hillary Clinton's campaign has been inextricably entwined with her husband's
legacy from the start. She cites her eight years as first lady as vital
training for the top job. And the strong opinions many Americans hold for
her, positive and negative, often stem from those days, when she delved
deeply into health care and endured the embarrassment of her husband's
affair with a White House intern.
Surprisingly, given that Bill Clinton was famously called the nation's
"first black president," the biggest problems he has caused his wife's
campaign involve black voters. Black Democrats' support of Obama did not
become so lopsided until he won heavily white Iowa, followed by a key win in
South Carolina, where Bill Clinton angered some blacks with comments before
and after the primary. He first said his wife was likely to lose South
Carolina because so many blacks would back Obama.
After Obama won by a bigger margin than expected, the former president noted
that Jesse Jackson also had won South Carolina's primary, in 1984 and 1988.
Many saw the remark as a bid to marginalize Obama as someone who could not
appeal much beyond black constituencies.
Whatever its impact, it preceded a period in which Obama's black support
reached 90 percent in some states while his margin among whites fell.
Bill Clinton has angrily rejected claims that he was being racially
divisive, although his remarks sometimes furthered the dispute. In March, he
said the notion that he unfairly criticized Obama was "a total myth and a
mugging."
"They made up a race story out of that," he said of the news media, calling
it "a bizarre spin."
Hillary Clinton's eventual win or loss this year will, inevitably, be placed
partly at her husband's feet. At the Elton John concert, he kept his message
simple and adoring.
"She can win this nomination," he said, urging the crowd to resist calls for
his wife to drop out. Then, paying her perhaps the biggest compliment he
can, he said he agreed with Chelsea that her mother would be a better
president than her dad.
