Keeping the Big Dog on the porch?

January 28, 2008

On Friday, the day before Barack Obama’s easy victory in South Carolina’s presidential primary, the NYT noted that the Clinton campaign had every intention to keep Bill Clinton in “attack mode.”

Advisers to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton say they have concluded that Bill Clinton’s aggressive politicking against Senator Barack Obama is resonating with voters, and they intend to keep him on the campaign trail in a major role after the South Carolina primary.

The benefits of having Mr. Clinton challenge Mr. Obama so forcefully, over Iraq and Mr. Obama’s record and statements, they say, are worth the trade-offs. […]

Mr. Clinton is deliberately trying to play bad cop against Mr. Obama, campaign officials say, and is keenly aware that a flash of anger or annoyance will draw even more media and public attention to his arguments…. They also see benefits in Mr. Clinton’s drawing the ire of the Obama camp, predicting that there will be a voter backlash against Mr. Obama if the former president looks like a victim in the cut-and-thrust of the race.

That was the day before the primary. The day after, the campaign has come to a very different conclusion.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign team, seeking to readjust after her lopsided defeat in South Carolina and amid a sense among many Democrats that Mr. Clinton had injected himself clumsily into the race, will try to shift the former president back into the sunnier, supportive-spouse role that he played before Mrs. Clinton’s loss in the Iowa caucuses, Clinton advisers said. […]

After a week of all-out campaigning by Mr. Clinton in South Carolina, where Mrs. Clinton came in a distant second to Mr. Obama, there is also fresh concern among some advisers that Mr. Clinton’s visibility has dented her argument that she has the best experience for the job. […]

Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, a leading supporter of Mrs. Clinton, said on Sunday that Mr. Clinton was going to pull back. “He’s got to,” Mr. Rangel said. “The focus has got to get back on Hillary. For all that he cares about his wife, this has to be her election to win, and it’s become too much about his role.”

Scaling back, however, may not be easy.

First, it seems the Clinton campaign has been struggling with this question for several weeks now. Before the Iowa caucuses, BC played a very high-profile role on the campaign trail. After HRC’s third-place finish, the former president’s role was scaled down. In Nevada, BC’s role was escalated again, and expanded even more in South Carolina. Now, the campaign is talking about reversing course, once again. Usually, these guys are a little more disciplined and a little less haphazard in campaign strategy.

Second, as much as I respect and admire Bill Clinton’s many, many strengths, he’s tough to muzzle. If the plan is to keep him on the campaign trail, but as a positive advocate instead of an attack dog, there’s always the risk that BC will get asked a question about Obama, and he just won’t be able to help himself. It leads to problems like the one we saw on Saturday with BC’s Jesse Jackson comparison, which was universally panned as the wrong thing to say.

That said, if the campaign is serious about shifting BC’s role, I think it’d be a step in the right direction. From my perspective, HRC is a very capable candidate, with a compelling campaign pitch. BC, for all he brings to the campaign, has begun to distract from his wife’s message.

…Democrats said it was not clear whether the effects of Mr. Clinton’s high profile could be brushed away by having him modulate his campaign style. They said Mr. Clinton had upset some of the central themes of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, including her appeal to women and her assertions that her time in the White House during the 1990s amounted to vital experience rather than a link to a presidency defined as much by scandal and partisan divisions as by its successes on fronts like the economy.

Stay tuned.

I’ve been stunned by how many previous Hillary Clinton supporters have shifted to, or towards, Obama in the last few days (including me) because of two things: Bill’s race baiting that Dems feel is just beneath the party, and Hillary’s bait and switch on Michigan and Florida delegates.

I have often commented on this site that all the top 2 tier Dem candidates were well qualified to be President, and I still believe that to be true. On the other hand, I am among the dismayed Hillary supporters. She has to get this right in a big hurry.

Three other things – everyone should read Krugman’s “Lessons of 1992” column in the Times today. Everyone should read the Think Progress piece with Olberman on Howie Kurtz’s show at http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/27/olbermann-kurtz/. Krugman and Olberman are two lights shining in the darkness.

Finally, I would be interested in comments on the following note I just received from a good, life long, very connected and engaged, southern Dem. It bothers me, a lot, but I’m not sure what to do about it:

“What I am going to say is racist – but it is my opinion that Obama won those large numbers of votes by the simple fact that he is black. Now Kennedy support indicates to me that there was bad blood between Ted,etc. with Clinton . I don’t think there are more than 3% educated blacks in SC that vote issues. I admit that I would like to see a woman President but she has to be someone that can lead. I know she has smart people around her that have experience to help. I don’t know Obama’s people. I could have better feelings about Obama if he had more foreign country knowledge. I don’t think we have blacks with enough experience. It has always been a White House. Some one will kill him if elected.”

  • It will come down to how well they think these tactics are working.

    To some degree there has been a backlash, so at very least they have to give the appearance of cleaning up their act. On the other hand it remains possible that there are still voters who are being swayed by the Clinton smears. If they believe this is helping them they will continue.

    I wonder if the super delegates will be the deciding factor. They might be able to fool some voters with their smears. but the more Democratic leaders protest the more it could hurt the Clintons should it remain close and come down to the super delegates.

  • Yes, there are obviously people who feel that way, but the times are changing. There are MANY whites like myself that have ZERO problem with voting for a black candidate.

    To vote for Hillary because you fear others won’t vote for Obama based on race is foolish. To vote for Hillary because you fear someone will try to kill Obama is equally foolish. To vote for Hillary because you feel she is more qualified is the ONLY legitimate reason.

    I personally do not see her as more qualified. On the issues and on the experience question I find them very close to equal. On the electibility question in the general election, I personally feel Obama is the stronger candidate.

    I absolutely refuse to base my choice on other people’s possible prejudices. Obviously overcoming our OWN prejudices is hard enough, why worry about someone else’s?

  • Nicely put, independent thinker. I’d also add that for all Hillary’s “experience,” she got rolled on the Iraq vote. And she went right along on Kyl/Lieberman as well—time spent in the Senate in between (her supposed advantage) didn’t seem to add to her “experience” at all.

    Obama’s got the judgment Hillary has yet to display.

    —

    And yes, worrying about assassination is something for the Obamas and the Secret Service. It shouldn’t disqualify anybody in the eyes of voters. Otherwise we will NEVER have a non-white President. Quit deciding based on fear—it feels better.

  • independent thinker (#3). Thanks for your thoughts. I just hope there are ENOUGH whites who feel as you do in swing states should Obama be the nominee. I also hope there are enough men (and women) who will vote for a woman President should Hillary be the nominee.

    Despite all the positive indicators, we are on uncharted ground here.

  • People – some of them anyway – recall things that TeeVee should have made them forget by now. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (vs. his promised Executive Order #1, which would have integrated the armed forces). The Defense of Marriage Act, which he signed. “I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman.”

    Such memories cloud one’s effectiveness as an attack dog.

    Triangulating is just so damned hard.

  • The only thing that works for Hillary is for Bill to be the traditional spouse, even if there is nothing traditional about that spouse being the former president. And I think she has to draw that line now, so that people can be assured that this is her campaign, she’s calling the shots and if elected, it will be her presidency and she will be in charge.

    As smart as she is, as hard-working as she is, I have been leery of a Clinton presidency because of all that comes along with it. She has had an opportunity, in this primary period, to establish the hierarchy, but it’s such a short period of time, and given the damage that may already have been done, she has no more time to waste.

    Where they have shot themselves in the foot is that, had Bill been the model political spouse up to this point, he could now go out on the campaign trail in the Super-Tuesday states and be a real asset to her campaign – but now, he risks being nothing but a lightning rod for negative media attention and fodder for the Obama campaign. I think she’s going to have to figure out a way to do this without him – and maybe that’s the best strategy of all.

    I’m beginning to look fondly back on the days when we were all so excited about putting a Democrat in the WH, and now I’ve begun to worry that we could find a way to lose it after all.

  • I think it was a critical mistake to have Bill give a speech before Hillary after the South Carolina loss. I also think it was a mistake that neither of them were in South Carolina. They had moved on before the votes were even close to being counted.

    I wonder if this had or will have any effect on the significant amount of fence sitters in SDT states.

  • It looks like early polls have Obama pulling ahead in Colorado, and one of the strangest developments is that Democrats typically split down the middle over whether Hillary would be better able to work with Republicans, but among Republicans, only 8 percent think Hillary would be better than Obama.

    I’ve got to ask, have Democrats become too partisan that they don’t even realize when they’re being partisan? I mean, JOE SCARBOROUGH, is trumpeting Obama’s campaign. AND, I think he means it! I’ve lived my entire adult life watching the Republican attack machine, but maybe it’s time to trust our fellow citizens’ better nature and vote for the inspiring candidate, rather than the street fighter? (rhetorical question, since I’ve already made up my mind).

  • If Bill Clinton’s part in this campaign is to be the Bad Cop, he is badly miscast. His greatest strength is being charming and inspirational. When he turns purple and drips with sarcasm, it turns off some of his most loyal supporters – like me.

    My advice to the Clinton campaign: don’t keep the Big Dog on the porch. Let him wander around as the friendly Labrador that we all know and many of us love, and not the snarling Doberman that has appeared in recent weeks.

  • Muzzling him will have no influence on history, and he actually was the president for eight years of recent history… We will never know this, but it is possible that many would not know who she is today had this not been the case. Maybe in different times, she would have run for president instead of Bill. But it didn’t happen that way, and now she is using her husband’s experience when she talks that talk, and sometimes I wonder if people view this as some perception she has that spouses and family members have the right to reign. I think Americans are beginning to use the word “imperial” a bit too often.

    I wonder if she were elected, how the public would react to even slightly contraversial decisions. She evokes strong emotions on both sides of the isle. Right or wrong, there are a lot of people who react violently against her, but I don’t feel sorry for her. She’s a strong woman and can take her licks or she wouldn’t be doing what she is doing today.

    Bill Clinton’s legacy is mostly positive. I hope it stays that way. We need to point to it as an example of our policies; if she is elected, she could become wildly unpopular even if it is unjustified.

  • wvng,

    It’s interesting that some Southern Democratic voters think that Obama’s race is a negative. I am not an Obama fan – too many charismatic preachers in my family for me to fall head over heals with a wordsmith – but the fact that he has survived, prospered and promoted his beliefs so effectively in spite of rampant racism in this country is why I hold any hope for him. A white man with his limited political experience would not be a credible candidate for me. But he has the experience of struggling against the odds and I respect him for that. He isn’t my first or second choice, but if he is the nominee, I will have no problem voting for him.

  • Re: #1 — This idea that someone will assassinate Obama if elected, it reminds me of Helm’s claim that soldiers would shoot Clinton if he ever showed up on base. Bill’s response was exactly right — he put on a shirt that said “Commander and Chief” and jogged through a base in Helm’s state. Yes, there’s racism, and yes, there are always those who would resist change, but that’s no reason to submit to it.

    Secondly, from the most crassly, cynical perspective, if some racist did assassinate a President Obama, it would be fantastic for our party politically and devestating to the Republicans. Do they really want another icon like JFK? The country seemed to have bonded with Reagan when he got shot.

  • Well it did resonate with me, just not in the way I think they thought it would. It pushed me a little more into the Obama camp. If I wanted to watch (no so) veiled racial attacks I’d move back down south.

  • Bill’s loose cannon routine is disturbing because we’ve come to look at ex-presidents as noble statesmen who somehow try to remain above the partisan fray. By diving headfirst into it, Bill lost his statesman’s aura and lost the image that he was sage and wise by saying some really stupid things. Rather than having a tandem of seasoned leaders with Team Clinton, Hill now looks to have a liability on her hands with a crazy husband who feels he’ll be able to pick fights whenever he wants to.

    I’m sad to see the Clinton’s going on damage control. I do like the pair. But even with the vaunted Clinton experience, Bill and Hill just proved that experience does not prevent a politician from making stupid moves. Experience now seems to fall behind tact and self-control in its importance for electability.

  • Petorado,

    I think Jimmy Carter has set the standard for ex-presidents. Compared to him, everyone else will look embarrassing. But I agree, Bill should return to playing his standard act of being charming. Still it seems that everyone is taking even the smallest blunders and magnifying them. The gottacha mentality of MSM is addictive.

  • I used to think that HRC wanted to demonstrate this was her campaign, and out of necessity would keep Bill on the sidelines. Sure, spouses want to be supportive but Bill is no ordinary spouse and never can be, so anything more than a sideline role was bound to diminish her standing as capable on her own. Now, we’re hearing the old two-for-one line, which still scares some folks who think the chief executive should be singular. Not only that, but arguments from people like Chris Matthews, who in so many words said she couldn’t have gotten this far without him, are given some validity.

    Now, we see Bill’s role changing based on the results of the last contest. This kind of trial and error, reactive decision making doesn’t bode well for someone applying for the ultimate leadership position. It does fit the mold of someone who wants to have it both ways, and of someone so blinded by winning that they lose sight of how their actions will be perceived.

    One of my biggest problems with the WJC years was that the Clintons needlessly gave their opponents ammunition to use against them by not understanding how their actions or statements would be perceived by others. Had HRC run on her own, I was prepared to give her a chance to overcome her high negatives by proving to people their perceptions were wrong, but the minute Bill started taking an active role, there was no way to judge her independently.

    Frank Rich had an editorial in yesterday’s NYT concerning Bill as a liability, and even though Rich comes with his own biases, he makes some good points that are definately worth a look.

  • Jen (#17). Prez Bill has been a great and inspiring ex-President – until the last few weeks. His global initiative (http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/) is one of the best examples I have ever seen of intelligently leveraging scarce funds to do substantive good on a vast scale (and I’m a non profit guy who knows something about leveraging funds).

    He has been pretty low key at this, and people tend to forget it’s happening – except for the millions who have been helped.

  • jen flowers said: I think Jimmy Carter has set the standard for ex-presidents. Compared to him, everyone else will look embarrassing. But I agree, Bill should return to playing his standard act of being charming. Still it seems that everyone is taking even the smallest blunders and magnifying them. The gottacha mentality of MSM is addictive.

    Great point Jen. As a president, Carter was not very effective (though admittedly he inherited a mess with stagflation in the economy etc). But since his time in office he has been the model elder statesmen and is greatly respected around the globe. He is the gold standard of how a former president should behave.

  • wvng,

    Bill managed to get Rupert Murdock and Barbra Streisand working together on a project. That’s pretty impressive. But he’ll have to keep it up for decades to match Jimmy who masterminded Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center. This is the kind of competition that our world needs.

  • Just put the Big Dog in a kennel with a Little Dog who’s in heat, and you won’t see or hear anything from him other than “Snarf! Snarf!”

    You residents of BillaryLand are getting pathetic.

  • Tom,

    So if your candidate wins the nomination, will you miraculously become one of his beacons of light? I really hope so. I worry about your blood pressure.

  • Anyone who wonders what kind of President you’ll get with Billary need only look at her announcement that she’s going to Florida today to “throw a party for supporters.”

    So she’s “not campaigning” in Florida, as she swore she wouldn’t???

    Sounds like “it depends on what the definition ofb ‘is’ is” to me.

    Like David Geffen said: the one thing you can depend on with the Clintons is what consummate liars they are.

  • Tom Cleaver – she’s attending a fundraiser, which is explicitly permitted under the agreement.

    Do your homework.

  • If Obama wins against Clinton tactics will it mean he has been vetted for the general election? I thought so at first, but lately I wonder. Seeing trends in politics is a lot like seeing animal shapes in clouds, but if Clinton tactics turn off Dem voters and turn them toward Obama, then they are not a good test. Because those tactics won’t turn off Republican voters in the general election. Two very different sets of voters.

  • ***“Triangulating” = “Telling lies”***

    Ed, I’d actually argue that triangulating is like a reckless thesis defense, which is why I have this nice little stoneware jar on my desk that reads, “Ashes of Problem Students.” Triangulation is a workable theory, but it requires an extremely pure, logic-based objectivity and a critical addiction to all facts—whether they support your hypothesis or not. The Clinton edition of triangulation has become far too subjective, and embraces the dangerous concept that “a bad thing is okay if it’s for the greater good.” Once that line is crossed without an effective exit philosophy (which is where Fortress Hillary finds itself today), it becomes all too easy to justify further transgressions—and further transgressions—and even further transgressions, to the point that there effectively becomes no difference whatsoever between right and wrong, so long as it supports your exclusive goals.

    As for Billy J, he seems to be working awfully hard at making Bush41 look better. A lot of people will never look at him in the same way again—and the Clinton legacy has, I think, been tarnished for a long time, if not forever….

  • Anne, will the Clinton campaign hold all media releases of that function until after the primary—or will folks in Florida see and hear Clinton’s campaign-bytes on the evening news tonight? It looks quite similar to Huckabee’s “free attack ad” stunt.

    And why no “fundraiser attending” before today? She’s stayed out of the state until the very last minute, and it does present the theory that she’s doing it to whip up votes—and isn’t that the very definition of “campaigning?”

  • Does it really matter if the rein Bill in? The damage is done. He’s gone a long way to towards hurting his own reputation, and to the extent that Hilary’s campaign is seen as turning his attack mode on and off based on poll results, that just makes things worse and plays into Obama’s “say anything, do anything” meme.

  • Suddenly Al Gore doesn’t look so dumb for eschewing Bill Clinton’s campaign help in 2000. If you can’t control your surrogates, you’re better off without them.

  • Due to my training (linguist), I tend to look at language including what happened when Bill went into the attack mode. The net result, to me, is that the perception of the campaign has changed. Until Iowa, it was “Hillary’s campaign” and it was Hillary who was mentioned every time there was something to be mentioned. Now, it’s always “the Clintons”, not Hillary. Which is not, necessarily, a “good thing”. And it may be too late to change that perception, because it had become ingrained in our vocabulary.

  • …BC’s Jesse Jackson comparison, which was universally panned as the wrong thing to say.

    Clinton spoke the truth. What’s the problem?

  • Once again always the names and not the issues. The MSM is keeping us focused on identity politics and speculating with assumptions of what ‘could’ happen.
    I hope most here are operating first of all from the reality that no republican will win the WH no matter who we nominate.
    It’s not just the records of candidates but it is more what they are proposing now and who their advisers are. Also will we get more conservative republicans on the SC just to appease the other side of the isle?
    We the people have been united for some time on a number of our most important issues. It is our leaders who have not been listening. Telling us we will become united for change is like a big…DUH! It has been the Bush administration completely supported by the republican party and the republican senate obstructionism enabled by Bush supporting Dems which has been blocking the will of the people. They have been pressured by an army of lobbyists with money to go along with this corporate elitism.
    Instead of worrying about keeping the big dog on the porch we should be identifying who the really “big dog” is that is affecting both campaigns. Both parties are talking about the big change without giving any of the particulars of how we the party are going to be able to accomplish this or what exactly will change. They have been distracting us from which lobbyists are heavily donating to their campaigns. As long as we keep focusing on the politics of identity we cannot get our candidates to change their stands on the issues. We are accepting their stands on the issues(when we can learn what they are) simply because they come from the candidate we support and not because we think that is the best way to deal with the issue.
    I can’t get supporters of our candidates to discuss how these candidates plans can be made better because they perceive any disagreement as an attack on their candidate.
    No one has ever asked the question of Obama or Clinton why their ins plans could not be made Not For Profit. And I can’t get Obama supporters to even read about Obama’s unusually conservative economic plan put out there by his extremely conservative economic advisers as pointed out in the Nation magazine because they think of it as an attack. Is it an attack to suggest that a black politician would win a predominately black state? Is it an attack to suggest that the high number of voter turn out would be happening anyway even if Obama were not a candidate because people are outraged at our current administration and our nation’s state of affairs and feel the necessity of doing something about it before it’s too late. When it comes to the 3 dems for president the answer should be “all of the above” but we will whittle it down to one. Attack dogs etc…really, there’s just not enough there to call any of it an attack.

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