Opinion: Why don’t they just get their own channel?
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Boy, you better like the Clintons if you’re watching any television these days. They’re everywhere, hawking a book or their candidacy or telling cute domestic stories about each other. Sen. Hillary Clinton, who doesn’t take questions from reporters on the campaign trail and rarely takes them from audiences, can reach millions of possible voters on TV talk shows and face pretty tame questions.
Over the weekend, we saw the two of them campaigning together again in New Hampshire and back in Iowa, like they did in Iowa over July 4th.
Bill’s got this new book out called ‘Giving’ that’s been getting him some publicity, and it’s a good excuse to be interviewed--and the timing of its publication in the fall before the primaries is no doubt purely coincidence. So there he was on the afternoon TV today with Oprah, who used to be throwing a Sept. 8 fundraiser for her man Barack Obama in the meadow of her Montecito house. She still is, but now it’s being called ‘a celebration.’
Leave the coarse fundraising to Hillary six days later at Magic Johnson’s house.
What a shock that during his time on Oprah’s show, Bill got around to talking about his wife, the Democratic front-runner. He suggested she occasionally notes that she is 15 years older than he was when he first ran for president. ‘And I say,’ the ex-president recounts, ‘’Well, nobody made you run, girl.’’
Although she has twice now called on him to campaign publicly with her and uses him more frequently to do quiet fundraisers around the country, Bill pooh-poohed his influence on the campaign. ‘If she’s writing an important article or giving an important speech,’ Clinton told Oprah, ‘she’ll ask me to read it. And once in a while she’ll ask me for some advice on something strategic. But she knows so much more about a lot of this stuff than I do because I’m far removed from it.’
It’s a tricky campaign tactic for Sen. Clinton to use her husband much. Although many remember him fondly, many others do not. And her own negative ratings remain high. His presidency was frequented by scandals and the loss of both houses of Congress to Republicans for the first time in decades. And returning to a Clinton era plays right into the hands of Barack Obama’s popular talk about the need for a ‘fresh page.’
Watch for the former president tonight on the Letterman show and tomorrow on the ‘Today’ show and ‘Larry King Live.’
Meanwhile, the candidate herself popped up on the season-opening episode of...
‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show,’ where they chatted. ‘I like her a lot,’ said the host. Ellen asked Hillary what’s the biggest misperception about her. ‘You know,’ said the senator from New York, ‘that I’m some kind of creature from an alien world, I suppose.’
The two went for coffee at a nearby diner, where DeGeneres, who is a lesbian, asked Clinton about her stand on gay marriage. Clinton said she supports ‘civil unions with full equality of benefits’ and added, ‘I’ve had the same position for years, but I’ve always believed marriage should be left to the states.’
A diner patron inquired if the former president does any work around the house. Clinton said the couple has had hired help since living in the Arkansas governor’s mansion, but said Bill sometimes rearranges bookshelves and is ‘pretty handy to have around, actually.’ The Times’ Peter Nicholas has the complete story on the ubiquitous Clintons here and in Wednesday’s print editions.
Tyra Banks toured Barack Obama’s Chicago headquarters today, filming scenes for his upcoming appearance on her show.
Wednesday evening on the Fox News Channel, the world can watch all eight of the announced GOP candidates debate in what will not be confused with an episode of ’24.’ Immediately after, they can see the next Republican candidate, Fred Thompson, almost-announce his candidacy on the Jay Leno show. He’ll do that formally Thursday in a webcast.
And if you don’t want to stay up that late, the Thompson campaign has bought its first TV ads to actually run during the debate, where Thompson will not be. Talk about control.
--Andrew Malcolm