Elsevier, The Netherlands

Is Bill Clinton an Asset or Liability to His Wife?

By Rik Kuethe

Translated By Dorian de Wind

January 25, 2007

The Netherlands - Elsevier – Original text (Dutch)

Hillary Clinton is counting on her husband being a great support in capturing the White House.  Therefore, he has been amply used during the first set of primaries.

In South Carolina, where Democrats hold a primary on Saturday, January 26, Bill has run the campaign even without his wife

“Street Dog”

Yet, it was evident from the beginning that this strategy held some danger for both members of the Clinton couple.  Bill’s image as the elder statesman and philanthropist could change into that of a biting street dog.

In his speeches for Hillary, Bill uses more frequently the first person singular:  “When I took on Social Security; when I increased the budget for the Navy,” etc.   Therein lies a danger for Hillary.  The voter should be able to ask the question if Hillary, once in the White House, will indeed assume the leadership.

Leaders

Barack Obama has sharply criticized the manner in which Bill Clinton has attacked him--his wife’s main competitor.  But also a number of Democratic Party leaders, such as Senator Edward Kennedy, have asked Clinton to tone it down.

Obama himself, during a debate on January 21, said that he often didn’t know whom he is really taking on.  This, after Hillary denied that she had taken offense to Obama’s appreciative words for Ronald Reagan.  That is quite an unorthodox sound in the Democratic Party.   Perhaps it had been her husband, she said.

Bill Clinton has also said that Obama‘s opposition to the intervention in Iraq was a fairy- tale.  That is a categorical untruth.  Unlike Hillary Clinton, who in 2002 voted for the invasion of Iraq, Obama was then not yet a member of the Senate.  But he is the only one of the serious candidates who has always opposed the war.

Point of Contention

Another point of contention is the spiritual legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.  According to Obama, the Clinton couple has tried to represent him in a less important way than he was.

In her book, “For Love of Politics,” Sally Bedell Smith describes the Clinton’s as a major enterprise, with Hillary currently as chairman and Bill as the head of the Supervisory Board .  They regard the emergence of Barack Obama somewhat like a shareholders revolt that drives the top of the enterprise mad.

Although the relationship between a man and his wife is different from that between a son and his father, it still must be said that the first president George H. W. Bush—himself defeated by Clinton in 1992—handled it in a different way.  When his son George W. in the year 2000 challenged Gore, father Bush, with the aristocratic style of a real New Englander, kept far away from the battle area.

Bad Word

I saw Bush Sr. once at one of those election gatherings in Columbus, Ohio.  That was in 2004 when the current president took on John Kerry.  It was one of his rare appearances on behalf of his son.  I can’t remember even a single bad word about the tall Senator from Massachusetts crossing his lips.

Bill Clinton, on the contrary, has tackled Barack Obama so hard that a black Delegate from South Carolina asked if he could not “chill it” some.

ORIGINAL DUTCH TEXT HERE