What if Bill Secretly Wants Hillary to Lose?

Before Iowa, I was rooting for Hillary Clinton. For purely emotional reasons. First, I wanted to see the first woman president in my lifetime. Second, I wanted the happy ending. I wanted Hillary to get hers at last.

I'm not someone who sucks it up and stands by her horndog man, but I like to believe it's an option. I want to believe that we're all human and we disappoint each other -- but that some people can hang in and work it out, no matter what.

I was looking forward to seeing someone who kept her eyes on the prize actually get the prize.

After Iowa, when the stench of loser hit Hillary, I realized what 9/11, George Bush and a catastrophic war had almost wiped out. I forgot for a minute that Iowa was not Hillary's first big humiliation.

I remembered the "bimbo eruptions."

I thought of the times Bill Clinton hung Hillary out to dry. Or, Hillary let herself be hung out to dry, depending on how you look at it.

I remembered Hillary on 60 Minutes in 1992 defending Bill against allegations he had an affair with Gennifer Flowers; Hillary on The Today Show in 1998 defending Bill against the Monica Lewinsky allegations and blaming a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

It occurred to me: If I were gunning for the biggest job in the world, would I want a guy who repeatedly publicly humiliated me as my cornerman?

What does infidelity mean, anyway? Were Bill Clinton's affairs merely because he's a complicated guy with a weird, white trash past who can't keep his pants zipped?

To me, a man's infidelity is sometimes as much about achieving a malignant power over his wife and hurting her, as it is with needing to scratch a sexual itch.

If you're married to someone like that, do you want him behind you in the race of your life? How do you know he's not going to trip you, like he did before?

Much is being made now of Bill Clinton's odd role in his wife's campaign. About how much he talks about himself, that maybe he's worried Hillary will be a better president than he was, to what the The New York Times called the failure of Hillary's chief strategist Mark Penn and Clinton to "fully grasp the personality deficit that Mrs. Clinton had with voters."

Interesting that Hillary's political genius husband, who has been married to her for 33 years, failed to grasp that she might have a personality deficit with voters. Or maybe he grasped it all too well.

I've known relationships like the Clintons. A charming narcissist married to a brainy plain Jane. They may be intellectual equals but the fuckable one is the star. The star rarely relinquishes the stage to his sidekick.

People hate Hillary so much that it's easy to chalk up their marriage as a codependence-fest. Certainly nobody was a bigger enabler than Hillary. I always hoped it wasn't proof she wasn't a total chump, but because she saw the big picture: herself as president.

But I have a vivid memory of a 15-minute interview I had with Hillary when I was covering her for the AP during the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York.

We were alone together in the back of a van going to the next stop. My impression of her was tough, brittle, super-smart. At the very end of my interview, I asked her about Gennifer Flowers, since that was the Clinton scandal du jour in 1992.

I was amazed when her face and entire demeanor completely changed. She seemed instantly wounded. Far from being mad at me for asking the question, or keeping her game face on, she seemed truly vulnerable. It did not seem fake.

She drew back from me and said, "It's not true!," almost like a teenage girl. Her voice was higher than usual and it sounded like a cry.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Bill is just eternally conflicted, not subconsciously Machiavellian, and two old pros who love a fight will figure out a way to make Hillary the second Clinton "Comeback Kid."

But if I had to bet, I wouldn't roll the dice for a Clinton victory. In fact, I'm wondering if the dice Hillary rolled so long ago, when she sacrificed her own career in Washington to join Bill in Arkansas, is coming up snake eyes.

And I wonder if her insistence so long ago that she was no Tammy Wynette, standing by her man, is coming back to haunt her.

Bill Clinton got his moment in the sun, eight years actually. Will Hillary get her shot?

The lyrics of "Stand by Your Man" are telling.

"You'll have bad times," Wynette sang. "He'll have good times."

Comments

[Cathexis]

Tsk, Dana.

IMO, this is not an Opinion Piece so much as a "Projection Piece" -- carthartic lashing under the guise of psychological speculation.

I used to hate the Clintons. Both of them. I was a Republican, back then ... and that's what we were supposed to do. But with the farce of an impeachment, I opened my eyes and realized that the only real reason I hated the Clintons was "because I was supposed to." The GOP dog-piled them. The Press pilloried them. And you know ... I discovered that much of what I was reacting to was "manufactured hate/outrage" that was being churned out by one or more political machines.

Her "high negatives" are a result of that. There *is* a vast Rightwing Conspiracy in this country. I know ... I used to be one of their drones.

[eaglecapri]

A well-written article with a VERY interesting viewpoint!

I've heard the rumblings about Bill subconciously sabotaging Hillary's chances, although their reasoning had something to do with an unreleased - to be released at the right time - report of his liaisons post-Clinton presidency! Sad, sad, sad.... But, yes, we see this type of behavior in rockstar-plain Jane type of relationships all the time. A man is able to get away with pretty much anything because the plain Jane is lucky to have him! Ha!

I prefer the in-the-moment Hillary you witnessed when you asked about Gennifer Flowers! Now, THAT, is real! Women prefer that to 'Oh, it's so untrue!' BS bullsh*t. But, it goes to show you, her concern for political advancement was much more important than where Bill put his 'fill in the blank' from time to time.

You have to wonder if she had divorced him and still ran for Senate, and now president, would we think of her more than or less. Women definitely would have been more behind her. Plus, she would have been able to run on her own record and not Bill's. I, myself, would have bought her 'change' argument. But, with Bill by her side....not so much. Hillary and Bill, Bill and Hillary DO NOT represent change!

Who knows if she still would have had trouble stopping, or curtailing Obama, running as divorced Hillary (maybe she would have gone back to Rodham); but, it's definitely something worth thinking about! I, for one, would have respected her more and thought her passion was truly for the country and not for political advancement.

[cuzkate]

I believe your article is exactly what most
of us have absorbed thru the years about this couple. It is not a case of working "things"out. It is a case of velvet vengence on the part of two has beens. It is painful to watch this woman dangle herself
over a boiling pot of ridicule.

[FirstShirt]

Bill Clinton is many things but he is no fool. The republicans know it. He doesn't make mistakes [sexual addiction notwithstanding]. How many mistakes has he made with the Hillary campaign? How many times has he sought center stage? He's a rock star [albeit a pathetic one] for the democrats and he will NEVER take a back stage to anybody.

[ignorantwillyharper]

Hillary needs to be voted out of the senate and she and Bill should be run out of New York and Washington. They would end up in Southern California and maybe that's where they belong. Everything is so fake out there they would fit right in.

[IndyProd]

Thanks for your observations.
One of the reasons I want Hillary to lose is that I don"t want this pathetic dysfunctional family back in the Whitehouse. I am disgusted with their soap opera that plays right into the hands of the rightwing. Enough already.

[prochange]

I have known husbands, who were not able to handle their wife's success. While women seem to be able to live with a cheating husband, very few men seem to be able to live with a wife surpassing them in the career.

While I am sure that Hillary did everything to support Bill's career, I doubt that Bill is able to do the same thing for her. I saw him giving one of these speeches to support his wife, he bathed in the adoration of the public, I think he will have major problems being the second fiddle.

If I would be his wife, I would have major problems trusting him after his history of cheating again and again.
A man who is able to humiliate his wife so many times in such a public way cannot be trusted.

And being the wife of a president does not make you a president. Bill is a born communicator and politician, Hillary may be better behind the scenes??

[PatA]

Hillary Clinton is one of the sickening reasons that my SIL is serving his second tour in Iraq.
Besides fearing for his life, and the lives of his soldiers, he HATES this mess called "war".
It isn't a war, never has been and never will be, it is a LIE.....and the seed was planted by Bush's puppeteers and watered by our spineless and ignorant "politicans".

[bookish]

Of all the candidates I'd like to "have a beer with", she's the one: tough and smart.

[Nonamnesiac]

I think that Bill is not a warmongerer at heart and realizes that Hillary is. He cannot oppose her publicly, but can't support her in his own heart, because he understands she will make decisions that sentence young Americans and people of other countries to be killed and maimed because of personal political calculation and dishonestly convince herself, and surround herself with others who will agree, that she was acting in the best interests of the country.

So he acts like a bumbler. To paraphrase Claude Rains in Casablanca, I remember when Bill Clinton bumbled his way into defeating an incumbent President who had just won a war and then bumbled his way to a second term.

[mgh234]

"To me, a man's infidelity is sometimes as much about achieving a malignant power over his wife and hurting her, as it is with needing to scratch a sexual itch."

Nope, men are just horny...

[scooperss]

I've often thought he doesn't want her to win too.

[TJS]

"I'm wondering if the dice Hillary rolled so long ago, when she sacrificed her own career in Washington to join Bill in Arkansas, is coming up snake eyes..."

This is the great insidious myth...that poor Hillary sacrificed her own brilliant career for Bill. The truth is that Hillary without Bill would be just another bright female corporate lawyer. (Remember Zoe Baird?) Does anyone seriously believe that Hillary would be a presidental candidate today if she had been married to, say...Jack Welch or Bill Gates? Far from being an enabler, Hillary put up with Bill's skirt chasing to bask in the glow of the Clinton charisma. She did not get the short end of the bargain. Her marriage to Bill propelled her to the threshold of the presidency. But the Clinton aura can only take her so far. Is she fails to get the prize, it will be due to her own shortcomings.

[Mango]

I'm a great fan of psychological interpretations, but this was overdone to the point of paranoia. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, even for famously phallic Bill Clinton.

[stevemarvin]

Some men see things as they are and ask why.
Hillary dreams of things that never were and asks Wynette.