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!
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Bill Clinton seems to be acting and sounding like my hillbilly cousin, showing up at a dinner party he wasn't invited to and doing whatever he can to be the center of attention, including pulling his pants down to someone other than his wife. It's downright embarrassing.
Stayed tuned for how the low tactics of the former Prez might help win the nomination for Hillary, but lose the election in an enormous backlash to his tactics. Bill is a remarkably intelligent person who could leverage that asset against Barack in some effective ways. Instead, he resorts to his dark side, to the instability of ethics and morals which are so well documented.
It is a tragedy of Shakesperan proportions for the romantics, of biblical proportions for the evangelicals, and of Fox News proportions for the imbeciles and their cousins, the idiots. I do not mean that unkindly; those people deserve all of the social-care programs progressives can provide for them.
Thank you for this article, that summarizes so well all the problems with the content and style of Bill Clinton's campaign. He is someone I used to admire for his political skill, and it's very disappointing to see that power matters to him more than his historical legacy.
I guess the lessons from 2000 were always hit back, always hit low, never tell the truth, and use Bill Clinton.
Oh yeah, and cheat.
This country has been lost in the wilderness.
I think we shoulda' taken left back in FLA.
Amen! I have always supported the Clintons, but I have NO interest in returning to the 1990s. As "W" has reminded us, the sequel is almost never as good as the original. And through no fault of her own, she is magically, maybe even supernaturally toxic to the nuckle draggers on the right wing. As Sam Seder so aptly put it, having her name on the ballot in November would be the functional equivelent of an anti-gay initiative on the ballot, in that otherwise dispirited Republicans would become energized to vote against their dreaded HRC. Plus, this isn't Argentina; we should be able to vote for somebody whose name has NOT been on the ballot in the last 20 years! Whomever wins the nomination should EARN it without too much help from his or her spouse. Finally, what good will the nomination be if this crap continues for another few months? To paraphrase the old song, "absolutely nothing".
Slash and burn, baby! Don't just kill the competition, kill the entire GAME!!! It's the Clintonista way. No one left alive.
I totally agree. Bill's behaviour has caused me to lose all respect for him. The guy just can't stand to be out of the spotlight. It sure is a foolish way to try and convince people that Hillary is her own person. He's helping neither her nor the Democratic party.
Thank you for expressing so well my sentiments. It is embarrassing to have an ex-president behaving in such a crass manner. If she can't make it on her own, she shouldn't run.
If Obama can't stand up to the Clintons, how is he going to stand up to the Repugnant Right Wing Attacks? Also, if Bill Clinton is damaging Hillary's chances by campaigning for her, wouldn't that further Obama's prospects? The bottom-line is that after Bill got involved, Hillary won back-to-back races in NH and Nevada. So why would he want to take a vacation?
He could probably tone it down a bit, but I don't see why he cannot defend his legacy, especially after Obama stated that the Republicans had been the party of ideas for the past fifteen years! In retrospect, Obama defenders can take the high-road and now say that he never said that they were "good" ideas. However, it would be hard for Bill Clinton to accept that dodge given that he was the president for half that time! More importantly, he was the one who had to either battle those ideas (if they were bad) and co-opt them (if they were good) - both of which is what he did and hence was so successful!
We are faced with a unique situation in our history, where an ex-president's spouse is running for president - and, that too, just eight years after the ex-president completed his two terms. It's up to the American people to decide whether the country would be well-served with its first woman president and her two-term, successful ex-president spouse in the White House.
To me personally, Clinton-Obama would make a winning combination in 2008. We'd simultaneously get our first woman president and our first black vice-president. We'd get experience, change, and hope all rolled into one - what's not to like! And finally, the Democrats could cue up Obama for president in 2016 - imagine 16 years of liberal nirvana! Aagain, what's not to like!!
As a Packer fan and voter who primarily supports candidates from the Democratic Party, I would remind the Presidential candidates that Green Bay was heavily favored against a banged up New York Giants team last weekend. We Wisconsinites were pretty comfortable with our chances all week prior to "the big game" and almost everyone in the sporting press was calling it a win for the Green and Gold. The rest is history. This is the Democrats' election to lose.
The Democratic base may love Clinton, but I am guessing that there are plenty of independents and Republicans that will never vote for Clinton's third term in a general election. So I agree, if Hillary is going to win this thing, Bill has to stop talking like its a return to his presidency.
Here is the reason EVERY Obama supporter in the country wants Bill gone: HE IS EFFECTIVE.
Bill is one the most popular figure in American politics of the 20 and 21st century and he is sweeping the floor with Barack Obama. The media is not covering Change, Hope, climbing a mountain, Obama's movement. They are covering Bill taking down Obama. He is so so so so so effective on the stump. In CA he attrated 13,000 people 2 weeks ago.
Seriously stop yelling for Bill He ain't going nowhere.
I don't know what news you have been watching but Edwards and Obama started attacking Hillary long before she or Bill started to defend her.
If there is a fractured party it will be because of them, not her.
Yet another plea for Bill Clinton to be nice to Obama because it might "destroy the Democratic party." He's trying to save the Democratic party by actually winning for once. Obama is not the face of the party, he's the new guy who should have stayed in the Senate a while longer. And this is on top of the fact that everyone seems to expect candidate Clinton's spouse not to campaign for her. He hasn't been "mostly negative," either. Those moments are always during Q&As or interviews with the press. The press plays what it wants to, and Bill "getting angry" increases ratings, I guess. But to pretend that he's doing something horrible and awful by calling Obama on his dishonesty and manipulation of the press is to take Obamalove to an entirely new level of delusion.
York
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