Bill Clinton: Take a Vacation

If ever someone needed to take a vacation and leave the campaign trail it is the former president of the United States Bill Clinton.

If the Democratic Party wants to have any hope of being a united party in November party leaders -- other than the leader of the party -- Bill Clinton -- need to tell Hillary's husband that he is doing much more harm than good to the Democratic Party by his remarks against Obama.

If the two term former president wants to keep his excellent post-presidency reputation intact he should go back to his philanthropic activities and his business at his presidential library and the Clinton Initiative programs.

If the first serious woman running for president of the United States wants to prove she can win the White House on her own merit she should tell her husband to move to Sweden or some other country far away from upcoming primary states.

If the Democratic presidential contest is not to drift down to its lowest level about who was friends with what slum landlord or who was on this or that board of directors of unpopular corporations then Bill Clinton should find a hobby other than politics.

If Democrats don't want to give away their high ground -- after all they are not the party with the unpopular president currently in the White House -- they should all encourage Hillary's husband to exit stage left.

The overall tone of the Democratic presidential campaign has gone downhill since the 42nd president of the United States started taking such an active--and mainly, negative role--in the campaign.

The discussion has gone away from the key issues of the day from Iraq to solving the housing crisis and other economic ills to name calling and arguing over really nothing at all in order only to score political points.

William Jefferson Clinton is an astute politician, probably one of the best political minds in the past fifty years, who appears to have lost his exceptional skills campaigning for his wife.

It now looks as if President Clinton's remarks and actions are helping his wife's main opponent, Senator Obama. It is very unfair for Obama to have to respond to two Clintons these days. After all, it is Hillary that is the one running for president. This is rapidly being lost as the former president continues to give talks discussing the "glory days" of his presidency.

If Hillary and the others are using the the word "change" in every other sentence having your spouse talk about going back to the days of his presidency in the 1990s certainly is not change. And, it is not experience to talk about your husband's presidency either.

Hillary is being overshadowed by her husband on the campaign trail. We are not going to be voting for a return to a Bill Clinton presidency. Hillary has to explain how she will provide "change" for the country. Having a spouse talking about the past isn't going to do it for her.

And, having a spouse who is taking away from her message on the economy and foreign policy issues is petty and demeaning for a former president of the United States.

Watching the Clintons one wonders how much they really want power to help the country or how much they really want power to have power again.

Now that the former president has interjected himself front and center in the campaign of his wife it is time for voters to ask what role will he play in her White House if she is elected.

America actually can survive without a Bush or Clinton in the White House. Voters realize it is time for a change -- hopefully both Clintons will wake up to the fact that we aren't voting for a restoration of Bill's presidency but voting for a candidate with new ideas of his or her own.

Bill, go to Sweden or Hong Kong or somewhere far away from the campaign trail and let your wife run for president on her own. The other candidates seem to be doing just fine running on their own. Hillary, go out on the campaign trail without Bill and battle Obama and Edwards on your own.

Hillary, if you can't win against your Democratic opponents on your own how do you hope to beat your Republican opponent in the fall if you get the nomination.

As a voter, I want to vote for only one person for president--not a husband and wife team to occupy the Oval Office!

Comments

[DoninJoisey]

The Clintonistas are at new lows. About Obama's win in South Carolina, Bill said:

"The former president, however, dryly noted that Jesse Jackson won the South Carolina primary in 1984 and 1988."

PLACE THE RACE CARD, BILL. It's all you have left.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-assess_tackett_sunjan27,1,6989877.story?track=rss

Bill, running for a third term by proxy.

[eatbees]

"It now looks as if President Clinton's remarks and actions are helping his wife's main opponent, Senator Obama. It is very unfair for Obama to have to respond to two Clintons these days."

These two sentences, which you placed next to each other, are in direct contradictino with each other! If Clinton's attacks are "helping" Obama, then Obama supporters should be wishing for more of the same!

[zendem1]

The Clintons have turned this campaign into a shit fest, squandering the best opportunity in history for Democrats to take back the White House and gain a bigger majority in Congress.
The only thing they're doing is helping Republicans. Clintons care about two things:Power and themselves.

[LoadedDice]

Well, clearly and perfectly said. To take it (a giant?) step further...

It is equally clear to me the Democratic Party cannot transform American unless and until it effectively transforms itself. That begins with an end to its hidebound (and needless) intellectu­al/emotion­al dependence on matters Clintonian and a (respectful) turn of the page.

Lest we forget: For fifty years the Democratic Party has been bereft of a coherent vision of governance, formulating policy instead on the basis of a well-meaning (no doubt) but vague and amorphous notion of humanism: an approach that left it "waffling" about matters importance to most Americans: the notion of individual responsibility, the notion of capitalism as the driver (if not the architect) of economic growth, the value/role of the military—all fodder for the Radical Right as they created their "working majority".

The eight years of Clinton’s presidency did nothing to change that equation, alter the language of the debate or begin to configure a new working majority for the party. If it remains steeped in path dependency, unable to distinguish a litany of “policy points” from a salutary vision of the future, the melodramatic reruns of the past sixteen years will mercilessly play.

Consequently I welcome the long overdue shift from the "me" to the "we" generation—a generation defined more by outlook than age and thankfully repelled by the mindless fantasy ideology of the Bush administration. But it is singularly underwhelmed by the reflexively top-down, egoistic, paternal “what-I-wi­ll-do-for-­you”) approach of the party’s olde guard.

The sea change in thinking that the nation and party requires demands our acknowledgment that while progress may be "incremental" (by virtue of how it's measured), our vision of the future need not and should not be. It demands inclusion, not condescension; collegiality instead of ideological antipathy; and transparency and candor rather than continued old school parsing, obfuscation and “triangulation”.

That is the promise of an Obama presidency. It remains to be seen whether he (and we) can deliver; but it is abundantly clear that no one else can.

[Democrab]

Bill Clinton is a tried and true president and leader. He can say anything he wants anytime he wants.

He's earned it.

I'm listening to every word as I did for years from this great man.

He's not destroying the party for crying out loud.

Whoever wins the dem nomination wins the white house, hands down and damn all the polls that say otherwise.

I love Barack, but we need debate just like troops need war games.

Stand by your woman, Bill, and tell the media, especially Russert and Scarborough that campaigns are not pretty.

We all wish that Gore had invited him to do some stumping for him.

We'd all be living in a better world.

[piezoid]

Just listened to an Obama speech on C-SPAN. Man is he boring!

He must have used the words hope and change a bazillion times in a diatribe delivered in a stentorian monotone that was enough to glaze a thousand picnic hams.

We Democrats are now seen as heir to the presidency but if we offer an unqualified demagogue to the American people WE WILL LOSE!.

He ain't the one, no matter how much you might want him to be.

Kerry is downright rivetting compared to Obama and we know where that got us.

[wizoz]

Its hard to excuse Bill Clinton's shrill tone of late even though I have been one of his biggest fans. Partisan's for both Clinton and Obama have unfairly distorted the facts. Praising President Johnson deoes not demean Martin Luther King nor does recognizing President Reagan's transformative effect mean you support Reagan's ideas.

Hillary's attempt to associate Reagan's policies with Barack Obama was inexcusable and has forever chilled my adoration of the Clinton's. They will do anything to get elected.

Bill Clinton says a McCain / Clinton contest would be civilized but our choice would be two old pols who know how to divide political spoils within the current system. I for one don't want a November choice between an old-line Republican and an old line Democrat. Both parties have failed the country on all the important issues.

[S1m0n]

Bill's never going to pull out, because without him, Hillary has nothing. She's running on his record, his talent, and his charisma. Amputating Bill from Hillary's campaign would be like amputating the right leg of a sprinter. Without him, she goes nowhere in a hurry.

[stellar]

Bill Clinton was impeached because the GOP searched and found SEX. The politician's secret life in the White House. Now as the husband of a possible future president he is turning women against her. Billary did not anticipate a difficult campaign. She has been using him whenever she believes she is threatening. She has been feeling insecure and fallible a very long time. My foreign policy question is :Will the Islamic leaders even listen to her simply because she is a woman? The future of the world is we are talking about.

[Tasies]

Enough from the "Hillaryous" Camp. All your arguments originate from an apologetic view of establishment politics. Should come as no suprise considering that Mrs. Duff is the establishment "bussiness as usual candidate." The fact remains is that your candidate voted the wrong way in possibly the most crucial vote of our life time. She didn't get steam rolled, she acquiesed like deflated blow up doll. Later justifying her vote by assuming the arquitects of the Iraq agression where to use her acquiescence responsibly. Again, don't turn the Democratic primary into a referendum on character (for obvious reasons). Instead, Clintonites should focus on her strenghts; like her uncanny ability to attract corporate contributors.

[xrayman]

". . . she should tell her husband to move to Sweden or some other country far away from upcoming primary states."

"Bill, go to Sweden or Hong Kong or somewhere far away from the campaign trail"

----------­----------­----------

What is it with Sweden? Is that some racial code that he should go where only whites live?

[warpspeed9]

Look at Bill Clinton’s perspective for a moment: Obama has hit both harder (with big distortions) and earlier than Hillary has ever hit him! But the Media is ONE SIDED -- and distorts this!

Why shouldn't this make Clinton angry????

Examples:
#1 --last October 2007 --Obama personally acted on a Saturday Night Live skit that outright called Hillary a "witch". A female actress for Hillary put a WITCH costume on the character of Hillary to illustrate the point??

**This was PURE character assassination. Turn this around. Can you imagine if Hillary had done such character sliming to Obama??? --- And remember this was last October***

The PRESS ignored it. Hillary turned the other cheek.


(2) Obama distorted Bill Clinton's position on Iraq == saying Clinton supported the War in Iraq -- but leaving out little details like Bill Clinton said he ONLY supported the war "IF" the UN inspectors found evidence of WMD (and Bill Clinton said he thought North Korea was more dangerous.)

There is a CNN interview before the invasion that proves this.

Bill Clinton complained. Obama just repeated the distortion.

(3) Obama insisted Hillary was for the war in Iraq and he was against it. Yet their voting records while both were in the Senate were essentially identical on Iraq??

I found this a distortion --
Obama could have just said his position was superior. Instead he distorted the record to state Hillary was an ally of George Bush.


(4) Obama implied Hillary was indeed a racist in her remarks on Martin L. King
I heard him say this plus heard Hillary's original speech.

The press again gave Obama a free pass.


(5) Obama did extol Ronald Reagan's "charisma" – but he did not say one way or the other whether he admired Reagan's policies.

I think Obama was hoping to pick up a few conservatives by acting vague in this.

This is a much different economy. Evoking Reagan's "charisma" isn't going to make any progress in this environment.

Hillary gets my vote. It is the MEDIA I am furious with, presenting Obama as a "victim" of “bad bad” Hillary.

[EugeneWright]

It is not the Bill Clinton who is doing irreparable harm to the Democratic Party but members of the press who keep fanning the phony race-baiting story. They take perfectly legitimate statements that no one would ever consider racially-motivated (if their opponent wasn't black or if the speaker's name wasn't Clinton) and paint them in the most negative light possible. Their isn't a racist molecule in Bill Clinton's body nor would he do anything to damage the party.
I believe that Hillary actually entered this race before Barack did and she has every right to contest it. That means she has a right to employ any legal asset at her disposal that might be of help, even if that asset is her spouse.

[eatfish]

where was bill in 2004?how come he did not help Kerry if bush is so bad?now we need to get bush out and he is leaving on his own.because he wanted to be president again

[buddyd]

Keep Pushing Bill. they hate you because you are good..Hillary will win. Get over it..