Since Bill Clinton launched his Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2005, the annual September meeting (just passed) has cast the former president as an international superstar. His CGI, labeled by one aide "a cause, not a conference," surpassed Davos as the place to be seen and his work on alleviating some of the world's biggest problems -- energy and climate change, global health, poverty, religious and ethnic conflict -- earned him ecstatic front page newspaper stories, network interviews and the prospect of a Nobel Peace Prize.
In my book on Clinton's post presidency, Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House, I wrote extensively about how important the CGI is in the legacy building that was going swimmingly -- until Bill Clinton went all out to campaign for his wife for the Democratic nomination. His outbursts, his seeming to interject race into the contest, sent his approval ratings plummeting.
This year, the 4th CGI has just passed -- it's deliberately timed to coincide with the meeting of the General Assembly-- and Clinton has had plenty of media. What the viewer and reader takes away from it all this time around, however, is that the former president is not really supporting Barack Obama, that he is hoping that John McCain wins so that he and Hillary can get going on her campaign for the nomination in 2012.
There he is again obviously hyping McCain, showing his reluctance to really push for Obama. And then there are the old jokes taking the viewer back to Bill Clinton caught in lies about Gennifer Flowers (1992) and Monica Lewinsky (1998). Asked about Sarah Palin he appears to turn his answer into a riff on persuading a reluctant woman to be okay with oral sex.
Bill Clinton's legacy seems to need a bit more work at the moment; it'll need a lot more work if John McCain happens to win on November 4.
From your reporter in Florida. Bill Clinton is in Orlando and Fort Pierce. A last minute venue change was made in Orlando to accomodate the crowds for his rally. His hair is silver and gold in the Florida sunlight. Sarah Palin's Kawasaki eyeglasses pale in comparison.
The comeback kid is not worried about political memory four CGI conferences down the road.
Thanks, big dawg.
The best way a Clinton can campaign for Obama is to get Chelsea out there on the trail!
It would mean far more than Hill and Bill.
I wonder if she has returned to the hedge fund run by a friend (and contributor) of her parents.
In the Clintons case, friend and contributor is redundant.
Obama is a better choice than McCain.
I'll vote for Obama.
Obama is doing great, and I trust him, but if I had to go into battle I would rather be with either Bill ro Hillary. They were treated poorly and wrongly by the party. The dems have been ungrateful and ungracious. They were tossed to side in favor of some guy with cotton candy coming out of his ass. Obama is unseasoned, and the debate shows he doesn't know how to go in for the kill when needed, and doesn't have the stomach for it. I do believe he can and will learn on the job.
Bill is feeling bitter. Ok, he's allowed. I still don't understand why the dems picked Obama over Hillary. It was a no-brainer to me. But Bill shouldn't be skewered for not taking one for the team. If Obama can't win without Bill's cheerleading, and even with Bill's thinly disguised anger that his party chose the 2nd best candidate, then Obama doesn't deserve the job.
Y.
No, Bill is not allowed. It's Bill's fault Dubya was elected in the first place. If not for Bill's dalliances, Al Gore would have been elected in a landslide on the coattails of eight solid years of peace and prosperity. But instead, Bill's foibles allowed the frame of the 2000 election to be about the repudiation of sexual impropriety in the Oval Office. And we've suffered ever since.
Bill owes the country a profound apology, and we owe nothing to him.
The dems are not entitled to anything from anyone, Bill or otherwise.
If the GOP framed the Gore-W electiont heme, than it's the fault of the dems for not framing it themselves. If we dems took all of our enegry we spend whining, complainign and playing the victim and put it into our work, we'd be better off.
Obama knows he has to win it based on playing his own game. Any energy spent trying to control or force someone else to carry his ball is wasted.
If Obama were smarter and more seasoned he would have Bill by his side as an advisor, depsite the ammunition such a situation would provide for the GOP. As I've said before, this is McCain's race to lose, and that's why Obama is doing so well right now...because McCain is blowing it.
It would have been Hillary's race to lose, but we dems are often fickle, moody, cannablistic and whiny...and oh so susceptible to fluff.
If you don't understand why the dems picked Obama over Hillary, just try to imagine Obama behaving the way Bill is now. Can't do it, can you? That's because Obama has behave with graciousness throughout this contest toward Hillary and on Friday, even toward McCain. Class shows when there is no class.
If Bill has shown us one thing over the years, it's that he has no trouble lying. So he should suck it up and even if he hates Obama with every fiber of his being, he should lie and say he loves him, so that the better candidate can win.
Oh, and by the way, Obama doesn't need Bill, but Bill could have made it easier. Obama will win without him, and show that he is the bigger man by giving Bill and Hillary a bigger role in world affairs than they deserve.
I was Hillary supporter until she began listening to bad advice and running a sleazy campaign. She began (as Bill is doing now) praising McCain and playing dirty against Obama. She lost, and she should accept her loss gracefully, as should Bill. They should be doing everything possible to get Obama elected, for the good of the country and the world.
If Obama is elected, both Bill and Hillary could have significant rolls in his administration. Hillary could be appointed to the SJC, perhaps a better role for her than president. He could be a much-needed ambassador-at-large. If they continue to campaign insincerely and cost Obama the election, I, and I believe many many others, will never support Hillary in '12.
She supports a more liberal form of Universal Health Care.
That was about the only daylight between the two of them.
You just think Obama is more liberal because he's black and McCain and company have harped upon that. Have you ever noticed that people trumpet his voting record as being so liberal but never define, in this day and age what defines a liberal?
Interventionalism in Iraq isn't conservative. Neither is bailing out failing companies.