Opinion: Hillary Clinton campaigns with a close friend
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After months on the sidelines except for guest web video cameos, former President Bill Clinton resurfaces tonight in Iowa, campaigning side-by-side with his wife in hopes of counteracting impressions that the Democratic front-runner is a tough person to like.
Tonight’s event, carried live on C-SPAN at 5:30 P.M. Pacific time, is a ‘rally for change’ at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. The Times’ Peter Nicholas will file a full report on this website tonight and in tomorrow’s newspaper. He reports that the large crowd, many urged to attend by a wave of automated phone calls using Sen. Clinton’s voice, gathered before a pile of the proverbial political hay bales. Peter also talked to Virginia Arnold, a 65-year-old from Des Moines, who said of the Clinton pair: ‘I don’t see how anyone cannot get excited about a team like that.’
Bill Clinton will crisscross the Hawkeye state with his wife through July 4th, also hitting the University of Iowa campus, parades and Independence Day celebrations -- all with a bus-load of reporters in tow. They’ll do the same in New Hampshire later this month.
Rolling out the 42nd president reflects a risky calculation on the part of Hillary Clinton’s campaign that he’ll rally Democratic voters without overshadowing his wife, as he did at last winter’s civil rights gathering in Selma, Alabama. Not an easy thing to pull off.
Despite what some may think of the ex-president, he is a natural campaigner exuding....
warmth and charm even in assembly-line handshake gatherings. His wife, however, is something else. She is struggling to show a warmer persona, even using a little self-deprecating humor on her website. But a Gallup poll still shows her unfavorable rating hovering around 50%, a dangerous level for any candidate facing a strong political and financial challenge from someone like Barack Obama.
Campaigning together also raises the dynasty issue--two, maybe three terms of Clintons interspersed by three terms of Bushes. And if she’s strong enough to be president, why does she need to call in her popular husband when things get tough on the campaign trail?
Bill Clinton hopes to fix that, in part by portraying her as more endearing than the public might suspect. He narrates a video posted on his wife’s campaign website about her work with children and commitment to public service. And the couple recently appeared in a widely-viewed spoof of The Sopranos TV series, where they reveal her new campaign theme song.
Referring to Bill Clinton, David Axelrod, now a strategist for Democratic rival Obama said: ‘I once said in 2000 about Al Gore, it’s hard to shine when you’re standing next to the sun.’’
This week we’ll see how strong the summer sun is shining on the rolling fields of Iowa.
--Andrew Malcolm