In the long phoney war of the 2008 US elections there have been thousands of articles written about Hillary Clinton’s bid to become the first woman president. Much less notice has been paid to the efforts being made quietly and behind the scenes for Bill Clinton to become the first First Husband in American history.
This week those efforts became public with the Clinton double act making their debut at a campaigning event. They are on a three-day swing through the all-important state of Iowa, culminating today in an Independence Day parade.
For Hillary, to have her husband openly campaigning beside her marks a new stage in her drawn-out presidential race; for Bill it brings to an end an equally prolonged state of electoral purdah, taking him out of the shadows of his wife’s campaign.
Dubbed the ”Ready to change, ready to lead” tour, their appearances kicked off on Monday night with a rally in the fairgrounds of the state capital Des Moines. It was an incongruous sight: the most famous pairing in US politics, dressed to the nines — he in yellow shirt, she in peach-pink silk — standing under an open sky on a platform of hay bales (well, this is Iowa).
But for the adoring crowd of several thousand Democratic supporters the Old Bill was back. He wooed them with his usual graceful ease, pointing out a man at the back of the crowd and introducing him as a ”member of a group I belong to”. The man duly raised a banner reading: ”Husbands for Hillary”.
Then Clinton rattled off his wife’s record as a public servant from the day they met in 1971 when, he said, she was already rejecting job offers from ”fancy law firms” to work for the poor, through her involvement with needy children to her time at the White House when she represented America in 82 countries around the world.
”In 2008 I will celebrate my 40th year as a voter,” he said to gestures of mock modesty from Hillary. ”In those 40 tumultuous, fascinating years for America she was by a long stretch the best non-incumbent candidate I have had the chance to vote for.”
Entering more risky territory, he referred to his wife’s failed attempt to reform the US health system in the early 1990s as First Lady. He said it was a good thing, not bad, that she was caught ”trying to do something that needed to be done” rather than sitting on her laurels.
The reference to Hillary Clinton’s health reform fiasco encapsulates both the potential benefits and the risks attached to bringing Bill Clinton up front in her campaign. The downsides are clear: his presence reminds voters of elements of his presidency they would rather forget, the failure on health being one, Monica Lewinsky being a notable other.
There is also the danger that the male Clinton, with his effortless charm, could overshadow the female, an outcome of the only other occasion they have appeared together in public this year, at a civil rights commemoration in Selma, Alabama.
”The Hillary Clinton team are well aware they have to be very careful to use him only when the moment seems right, to keep him on tap but not on top,” said Bruce Buchanan, an expert in presidential politics at the University of Texas.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton’s advisers are also aware that in her husband they have at their disposal a campaigning asset of phenomenal power. They are not going to repeat the ”Al Gore mistake” as it is referred to by some in the Clinton camp — keeping Bill at arms-length for fear of his downside only to forgo his considerable upside.
This week’s Iowa spectacle is an indication of how they will use him over coming months. With the Iowa caucus likely to kick off the primary season on January 14, the state is being canvassed almost to death by candidates. Unusually for Hillary Clinton, who is enjoying a healthy lead in national opinion polls, she is behind in Iowa by about three percentage points from her rival John Edwards, who has focused his firepower here over the past two years. Barack Obama is also snapping at her heels — significantly he too is in Iowa, this July 4 week.
So when Clinton stepped forward to address the crowd on Monday night she began with the, presumably genuine, words: ”I’m awfully glad to have my husband here, back in Iowa”. She alluded frequently to his record in office, from the creation of 22m new jobs to the reputation America enjoyed under him as an ”honest broker and mediator” on the world stage.
”Six-and-a-half years ago we had a feeling we were ready to face the future. The bridge Bill said he would build to the 21st century — we were ready to walk across it.”
We can expect to hear more of this mutual back-slapping from the Clintons as the campaign intensifies. Bill Clinton has let it be known that his diary is being kept relatively clear in the autumn and into 2008. There is even talk of him hitting swing states independently of his wife on his own campaign plane should she win the Democratic nomination.
That could be valuable in Southern states where Bill Clinton, with his Arkansas roots, has an advantage over his Mid-western wife. ”He’s a draw in the South for both whites and blacks, some of whom still refer to him as the first black president,” Buchanan said.
The Clintons have come a long way from the dark days of the Lewinsky affair, referred to by Hillary Clinton in her autobiography Living History as ”the most devastating, shocking and hurtful experience of my life”. Most of the crowd on Monday night — Democratic supporters to the core — said they had put the scandal wholly behind them.
A Hillary supporter, Teresa Smith, said: ”If he was my husband he’d be dead.” But then she added: ”But he’s not my husband, so we don’t need to worry about that.”
Should she win the nomination and go on to win the presidency, Clinton has said she will make her husband a roaming global ambassador. She is unlikely to be allowed constitutionally to give him a Cabinet role even if she wanted to, and members of the Iowan crowd thought she’d be unwise to try.
”He should be there for her on the sidelines, but Hillary is strong and she will run the country,” said Denny Armentrout, Bill Clinton’s man with the ”Husbands for Hillary” banner.
After the speeches the couple went on a walkabout. ”I can die now,” one woman said clutching his autograph.
Someone asked him whether he was glad to be back on the campaign trail.
”Ecstatic,” he replied. You can never be quite sure with Charmer Bill, but he sounded like he meant it. – Guardian Unlimited Â